X-Men: Forced Evolution, Episode 1: Prodigal Daughter
by Garth St.Claire
Summary: X-23 is finally allowed to join Logan at Professor Xavier's, hope and fear battle within her mind as she arrives there. However, she does not come alone, as Colonel Nick Fury of SHIELD who comes to collect on some shady agreements he has made with the Professor in the aftermath of Apocalypse's downfall. A simple mistake leads to a hunt under the watchful eyes of a new enemy.
1. Chapter I:X-23

**AN: This is pretty much my first story I have ever published. It is beta read by a good friend of mine and I hope that you will enjoy reading it. If you liked reading the story (and even if you don't) please let me know, you don't have to write a 500 word review, just maybe a little one sentence that you thought whether it was a good read, a mediocre read or the worst pile of nonsense you have ever seen. I just want to know if this is worth continuing. Thank you. **

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**X-Men: Forced Evolution  
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**Episode I: Prodigal Daughter **

**Chapter I**

**X-23**

The transport convoy stopped and around X-23 the world erupted into sudden tumult; the steam-like sound of transporters opening, Colonel Fury bellowing orders, a multitude of military thundering over the pavement and suddenly grinding to a halt.

X-23 flinched, didn't these SHIELD people realise how sensitive her accelerated senses made her to noise? Under normal circumstances she would not have been bothered by it, but in her present situation, caged up in this car, every little noise or even sudden movement made her ache to get her claws out. Of course, that was not an option; the agent next to her would just inject her with another dose of that power inhibition serum, so far they did not know that her healing factor had already neutralised the last dose, something X-23 could use to her advantage should a chance for flight present itself.

"Don't worry Laura," said Dr. Risman, who sat opposite of her and put a hand on X-23's knee, "you will love it at Professor Xavier's school. You will find friends here."

X-23 withdrew her knee from underneath Dr. Risman's hand, she did not like it when that woman touched her and she did not like it when anyone called her "Laura". Her designation had always been "X-23" why should it be changed now? Dr. Risman had told her having a "real" name would help her fit in and develop a sense of identity beyond being a weapon, but why should she listen to Dr. Risman? Was that woman not one of the people who created her in the first place? There was a weird sadness in Dr. Risman's face as X-23 drew away from her. X-23 hoped that the woman felt bad for what she had done.

"Colonel Fury has finished the preparations, Ma'am," reported the driver, "you and the transfer have permission to disembark!"

The door opened. That was the moment X-23 had waited for! She could feel the hairs in the back of her neck rising as she, under the watchful eyes of two more SHIELD agents stood up from the car. If she could just slip far enough away from the agent with the power inhibitor…

."Hiya Kid!" The tone of the voice, just like the hand gripping X-23's arm was gruff, but by no means hostile, no, quite the opposite. She looked up at Wolverine and forgot her plans of escape for a moment. The urge to embrace the closest thing she had to a parent was strong in X-23, but she did not want to show that kind of vulnerability in front of the SHIELD people. Instead she greeted him with a barely noticeable smile. A smile he repeated.

"I wanted to make sure to welcome you in person." Something in the way he said that made it clear that part of the reason Wolverine had come was because he foresaw that X-23 would plan to run away and meant to intercept her. X-23 found it a bit disconcerting that the older mutant could look right through her like that, but it was also comforting to have someone who understood her so thoroughly.

The noise of someone suppressing a cough caused X-23 to start up. Only now she could clearly see that her escape attempt would have been fruitless anyway. The convoy had halted only meters from the front porch of Professor Xavier's institute, yet a whole unit of SHIELD paratroopers was crammed into that space. She would not have gotten far without getting another dose of the serum pumped into her, along with some tranquilizer. She looked at Wolverine again, who nodded, once again knowing exactly what went through her head.

Wolverine moved his hand from X-23's arm to her back and addressed Colonel Fury, the director of SHIELD's Meta Human department, who stood on the vanguard of his troops.

"Well Fury, she's in our hands now. We have no need for your soldiers here." With this Wolverine started to lead X-23 towards the building.

"I'm afraid I can't leave yet," Dr. Risman stepped into their path. X-23 glared back at her, why couldn't that woman leave her alone already? Dr. Risman balled her hand at her heart in response to X-23's glare, but nonetheless continued her protest, "I am Laura's legal guardian, I have to settle the details of her enrollment with Professor Xavier personally."

With a low growl and a nod Wolverine gave his approval for that. He had just allowed the woman to join them when this time Colonel Fury held them back.

"I too, still have some business to discuss with the Professor." He did not wait for any sort of admission or approval from Wolverine to enter the house with them, inviting himself in.

The only time X-23 had been inside Professor Xavier's school before was when she had infiltrated it to get her misplaced revenge on Wolverine. The grounds outside looked just like she remembered them, a beautiful and tranquil garden, almost like a tamed forest. The interior of the building, however she had only ever seen at nighttime. Then its old-fashioned architecture, large rooms and long corridors had filled her with a strange mixture of unease and longing. Now however it was bright daylight and the sunlit entrance hall seemed open and breezy to her, akin to a sunny clearing. Back then she had only been able to spy on and envy the lives of the people here, now she was meant to join them. But of course, even a nice cage was a cage and walls still made X-23 feel on the edge. Instinctively she drew closer to Wolverine, his hand now grasping her shoulder.

"The Professor's in his study. I presume he expects you by now," said Wolverine to Dr. Risman and Colonel Fury.

At this point a commotion in one of the corridors leading away from the entrance hall caught the attention of both Wolverine and X-23. In passing she could see a number of figures at the far end of it, who instantly dived behind the walls of the next room as they saw that they had been noticed. X-23 looked at Wolverine who sighed and excused himself and her from the uninvited guests.

As he led X-23 down the corridor she could hear the voice of a male adolescent curse and whisper something about "they're coming this way!" And a girl suggested that they should "get back to the kitchen."

Wolverine ignored the voices and clearly audible sound of running that sounded from the kitchen and instead turned to one of the corridor walls, "Half-Pint! Get outta here!"

A very slender girl with long brown hair stepped right through the wall. She had her hands clasped behind her back and looked up at Wolverine with a very apologetic smile. X-23 recognized her from SHIELD's files as "Shadowcat", a student of this facility.

"Yes, Mr. Logan?"

"I want ya to meet Laura. She's going to join us here, remember?"

For a moment Shadowcat drew closer to the wall again, but then she bit her lip and, with a much more sincere smile she approached them.

"Yes, the Professor told us about you," she stretched her hand out to X-23, "I'm Kitty Pryde, welcome to our school!"

X-23 just stared awkwardly at Shadowcat's hand. She just couldn't get over how surreal this situation was; in front of her stood a girl who offered her acceptance and friendship and all X-23 could think about was how easy Shadowcat had been to eliminate back when she had taken out the X-Men one by one. Were situations like this the norm in her life now?

Wolverine gave X-23 a little shove, prompting her to accept Shadowcat's handshake. The other girl's grip was very light, gentle.

"Well," said Wolverine, "I leave the two of you to get to know each other."

He attempted to return to the entrance hall, but X-23 spun around and held him back.

"Wait!" she called, "please don't leave me alone!."

Wolverine raised an eyebrow, "You're not alone. You're with Kitty."

She grasped his arm tighter, "But I want to stay with you!"

His eyes narrowing Wolverine firmly freed himself from X-23's grip. "Look kid, if you wanna make it here, you have to learn to trust all the people living in this place and not just me. I can't have a child dragging after me all day," he nodded towards the entrance hall "right now the Professor's waiting for me to attend some meeting with SHIELD, and whatever Fury wants, it's not for you to hear about, get it?" With this Wolverine turned around and walked off.

If Shadowcat had not stood beside her X-23 would have most likely broken down and cried. How could Wolverine lash out at her like that after all he was her… She shook her head, chasing those thoughts away. She had already humiliated herself enough in front of the other girl, shown enough weakness.

"Rude!" commented Shadowcat, hands on her hips, then she turned to X-23 and looked at her, bright and smiling, "But don't you mind him, he just gets his moods every now and then. Your name's Laura? Love it!" Before X-23 could correct her on that Kitty had already linked arms with her and had started to drag her deeper into the school's endless maze of corridors.

"First of all, let's get you out of that gravedigger outfit," said Shadowcat, her voice suddenly marked by an unusual excitement, "you can have some of my old clothes! I have an awesome green cardigan that so totally your color!"


	2. Chapter II:Wolverine

**Chapter II **

**Wolverine**

Logan was not exactly proud of how he had handled the situation with the Kid and, truth be told, he did not exactly understand why he had lashed out at her like that. After all he had been exposed to the hormonal craziness of teenagers for quite some time now and how exactly was the Kid tugging on his arm any different from Rogue needing support or Kitty looking at him for assurance?

He made a low growl as he remembered his first meeting with the girl, when she had come to take revenge on him and how she had screamed at him about how all that Hydra had done to her was his fault. Maybe it was his own guilty consciousness that bothered him. After all, she did only exist because Hydra wanted their own Weapon X, repeat the success the Canadians enjoyed with him during the Cold War, but without the failure of his rebellion. He almost shuddered at the thought of that, if what Weapon X had done to him still caused a jaded bastard like himself to wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and only the instinct to run and hide, how much more would it damage a child to go through the same? He clenched his fists, extending his claws and retracting them again. It made no sense to mull over the past. What mattered was the future, Laura's future, in time, Logan was sure, life at Xavier's would be as much a new beginning for the girl as it had been for him. She would heal and learn to laugh and play and do all the things people her age were supposed to do. That was, if they could get SHIELD to finally leave her alone.

"I will not stand for this, Charles!" Logan knew Ororo well enough to notice the undercurrent of anger in her otherwise perfectly disciplined tone. The X-Men's resident Weather Goddess was not happy.

Opening the heavy mahogany door and stepping into Professor Xavier's office found himself right in the middle of a heated debate between Ororo and Fury, with Chuck, Scott and Jean doing their best to mediate. Deciding it was best to wait until his input was needed he took his place in the room's far corner, slouching against the wall.

"Ororo, please," chimed Jean in, standing up from of Chuck's desk, "you know this decision hasn't been easy for the Professor either."

Ororo's looked at Jean, "Charles is in no need of you defending him, child," she responded, "and you know as well as I that from the very beginning these negotiations have dealt in blood and souls. If they are to continue, they shall do so without my consent or participation." With a movement graceful as the winds she commanded Ororo brushed her long white hair back and turned around to leave the room.

It was now roughly two weeks ago that Fury, in the aftermath of Apicalypse's downfall had shown up at the institute to discuss closer partnership between SHIELD and the X-Men. And it had also been roughly two weeks since anybody had seen Ororo smile. However, up until recently the faculty of Xavier's had pulled on the same of them, least of all Logan himself, wanted to see the children they had protected for so long turned into some sort of mutant strike force for a shady intelligence organization.

Where Ororo disagreed with the Professor and the rest of her fellow instructors was that she did not accept the terms Chuck had negotiated Fury down to; leave the X-Men alone and hand over X-23 and in exchange they would turn a blind eye on SHIELD conscripting the kids from the Brotherhood into their "Project Freedom Force" In truth, no one was happy with that arrangement either, as it basically meant trading the fates of five stupid, but largely innocent, youngsters for the freedom of one. What Ororo failed, or so Logan thought, refused to acknowledge was that this trade, as much as it was against their principles, was the best shot Chuck had of saving his school and his students from a lifetime of service for SHIELD.

Logan just wanted to step in to diffuse the situation, calm down Ororo and hopefully continue to resolve whatever issue Fury had come to talk about, when instead Fury took the word.

"That it unfortunate, Ms. Munroe," he addressed Ororo with a subtle, courteous bow, "a compassionate and ethical mind like yours is always of value in discussion on how to help lost and frightened children."

Ororo, stiff as stone, dismissed him, "Turning children into soldiers, living weapons even, does not help anybody, Colonel, least of all them."

"True that," agreed Fury, earning a surprised glance from Ororo with this statement, "however, my hope is that between Freedom Force and this facility we might prevent some of them to end up as delinquents who hideaway in the sewers because they are too frightened of the world to face it."

Ororo's eyes light up bright white for a split second, the sky outside darkened and in the distance Logan could hear thunder roll. At this point Logan would have not been surprised if Ororo had snapped and fried Fury with a thunderbolt. It was a risky maneuver from Fury's side to allude to the fate of Ororo's nephew, who still preferred living with the Morlocks to rejoining the school. To Fury's, and Logan's, visible surprise it worked; Ororo backed down and, took a seat next to Chuck's desk, signalizing her willingness to at least hear him out. At no point did she lose any of the proud, regal manner she had adopted towards anybody affiliated with SHIELD, her face a unreadable mask, her stature completely formal and erect.

Behind Chuck, Scott breathed out in relief, there was a smell of ozone in the room, the hairs on Logan's arms stood stiff with static electricity.

"So," Chuck cleared his throat, symbolically wiping the table clear to start the talk again, "with this out of the way, you may tell us what brings you here today, Colonel, I am sure I was perfectly clear the last time that I do not wish my students to be recruited into SHIELD or to enter any other affiliation between my school and any military organization."

Fury nodded, "More than perfectly clear," he built himself up in front of Chuck's desk and threw a heavy looking folder on the tabletop, "which is why the higher-ups have sent you a nice list with their terms and regulations."

Chuck looked at the folder and back up at Fury, "I do not understand. I am fully capable of running my school on my own."

Fury looked like he wanted to disagree with Chuck on that, but opted for a more diplomatic approach, "Still SHIELD would prefer to increase the transparency of your activities here. Basically what this doorstopper here says is that, in order for your school not to be forcefully integrated into SHIELD and Project Freedom Force, you will have to start showing some results that proof this is indeed a functional educational facility, Professor." He began counting of the points on his fingers, "For one, start cleaning out your track record with dropouts! Since you started this little institute here five students either ran away never to be seen again or where removed by their parents because they felt their children were not safe in your care. And that's from a student body that had only reached fifteen students at its peak. Not that impressive a number to begin with."

The room was notably silent. Nobody needed to be remembered how Xavier's had failed Evan or Tabitha. Or how Mr. DaCosta had stormed into Chuck's office less than a week ago, mauled every instructor he could find for pitting his only son against a genocidal demigod and then taking Roberto back to Brazil.

Fury continued, "Secondly; you have yet failed to assemble a new class for this term. While I understand that the Apocalypse Crisis might have hampered the school's ability to function properly, there is no such excuse now. There is a world full of young mutants in need of help and education, so please step up to your responsibilities! And just to be clear; you do not want a repeat of the incidents that led to the formation of the Brotherhood, because that's when Freedom Force would have to get involved.

"Thirdly; you have to show evidence that alumni of your school have more career options than just to become instructors for the next generation of an increasingly isolationist society. I want to see some of your former students attending university, and that fast."

As Fury said that Scott and Jean looked at each other, he cleared his throat, while she glanced aside and brushed her hair back.

"And finally," continued Fury, "though it should go without saying, the X-Men, as a team of vigilantes, are to disband immediately. Martial training is to be restricted to solely learning control of one's powers, basic self defense and ordinary P.E. There will be no more teenagers learning how to fly military aircraft and no more students or faculty of this place going on missions to fight rogue mutants. Any mutant related incident now and in future will be solely the responsibility of SHIELD and Project Freedom Force." He turned to Ororo, "After all, we don't want your dear children to be turned into soldiers, do we?"

Again Ororo's eyes flashed white again and thunder rolled, closer this time than before. Jean gasped, her hand clasping the handle of Chuck's wheelchair. Even Logan failed to suppress the urge to growl and unsheathe one of his claws.

"What?" called Scott out, throwing his arms about in frustration, "Disbanding the X-Men? You can't do that!"

Fury shrugged his shoulders, "I can and I must. If you wish to continue playing super hero you, just like your fellow students, are welcome to enlist in Freedom Force, Mr. Summers.

No one but Logan with his advanced hearing noticed the scream coming from the students' dorm rooms. However, they did react to the considerably louder, and closer, sound of a window being smashed. Instantly the debate was forgotten as the whole room jumped to their feet. Logan could tell by their expressions that they had the exact same ugly gut feeling about what, or better, who, was the cause of the tumult. He just hoped that nobody was hurt too badly.


	3. Chapter III:X-23

**Chapter III**

**X-23**

At first X-23 had resisted hard against Shadowcat's various attempts to cheer her up. After all with her childish behavior in the hallway she had brought shame, not only over herself, but also to Wolverine, and that in front of one of his subordinates to boot! She had been a bit worried about what kind of punishment would await her for that and briefly wondered if the school had any single confinement cells like Hydra's headquarters. What had worried X-23 more than that was how Wolverine was bound to be disappointed in her and how long it would take to prove herself worthy to him again. These had been the thoughts that had plagued X-23's mind as Shadowcat raced them up the stairs and down yet another corridor.

They reached Shadowcat's room. Entering that bright, beautiful place X-23 could only stand there and gape for a while. X-23 had not forgotten that the sleeping quarters of Xavier's students were palaces in comparison to what she was used to, but last time she had only sneaked through them in darkness. In the light of day with sunlight and bird chirping coming in from the wide open window, Shadowcat's room looked like the abode of a fairytale princess. Everything, from the billowing curtains to the linen on the bed and the pieces of cloth draped over bedside table and desk was soft, pink and beautiful. Garlands of fake flowers lined the ceiling and the walls were hardly visible under a layer of photos showing Shadowcat with her friends and family and posters displaying everything from musicians to graceful ballet dancers. In a strange way the room seemed to X-23 like an extension of Shadowcat herself, like the other girl had imprinted her being onto the room, even the air smelled like her, a mixture of lemon and lavender, vital and gentle. Gliding her hand over a purple dragon soft toy that sat on Shadowcat's desk X-23 could not help but wonder how her own room would look like. If the quarters of normal people reflected their inner self then… X-23 bit her lip and shook her head violently, all she could imagine was just another dark cell with impersonal grey walls, only that they were splattered with blood.

A sudden explosion of sound tore X-23 away from her thoughts, startled, she took a step back towards the door.

"Oops…sorry!" Shadowcat flicked the wheel on her computer mouse a few times and the noise subsided somewhat. X-23 realized Shadowcat was playing music from her computer. "This song is called _Crazy in Love_ by a singer named Beyonce, do you know her?"

X-23 was reluctant to answer, and also a bit irritated by the, still loud, music, but as Shadowcat continued to look at her she finally gave in and shook her head.

"I… they didn't let me listen to any music at Hydra," she explained, "when I was in SHIELD's custody Colonel Fury would sometimes play me records of something he called Jazz. I didn't like it very much." She lowered her eyes, afraid of making Shadowcat uncomfortable with talking about Hydra or perhaps making the other girl think of her as stupid for her lack of education in music.

Kitty, however, just smiled, "Oh, I so have to burn you a mix CD!" she called out and clapped her hands together, then she looked back at her computer screen "Let's see…what could be something you'd enjoy?" Apparently that was not a question Shadowcat expected an answer to, as she continued to stare at her computer screen, biting at the nail of her one hand, while using the other one to scroll.

Feeling awkward left to her own devices in a strange place, X-23 cleared her throat in an attempt to bring Shadowcat's attention back to her.

"Uhm, Shadowcat?"

Kitty laughed, "Please, call me Kitty, we're not on a mission!" she still did not look up from the screen.

Something in X-23's stomach knotted itself together, having grown up in a world full of unit designations and codenames she was not very comfortable with calling people by their given names. It seemed too much like familiarizing for her tastes.

"Okay…. Kitty, you said something about wanting to give me a…. a cardigan?"

Shhadowcat looked at her, her eyebrows raised, "Uh…?" Her eyes wandered from X-23 face to her body and Shadwocat slapped her forehead, "Right! The gravedigger clothes!" She jumped up and grabbed the end of the black, long-sleeved top X-23 was wearing.

This almost caused X-23 to jump back and unsheathe her claws at the other girl. She quickly reminded herself that Shadowcat was not about to attack her and instead rose her arms and allowed the other girl to undress her.

Shadowcat looked at the dark garment in her hands and scrunched her nose, "Seriously, who made you wear that? Even Rogue has a better taste than that!" She threw the shirt on the ground and rushed over to her wardrobe.

X-23 put her arms around her upper body, "It is standard SHIELD off-duty commission."

"Well…" Shadowcat removed emerald green and creamy white garments from the rainbow of cloth that filled her wardrobe, "you're not with SHIELD anymore, Laura," she truned around to X-23 displaying a low cut, white undershirt and a green cardigan that looked soft and smooth as a bed of moss to her and smiled, "your one of us now!"

Despite herself, X-23, found herself repeating the smile. Maybe it would not be so bad at Xavier's, and maybe it would not be such a bad idea to think of Shadowcat as "Kitty" either.

"Hey! Kitty!" a boy with short, badly bleached hair leaned in Kitty's open doorway. It was Iceman, one of Xavier's novice students. He smiled as he looked at Kitty, but that smile quickly faded as he noticed X-23's presence.

Kitty handed X-23 the clothes and groaned, "What do you want, Bobby? Has the peroxide finally killed your last brain cells?"

Iceman bit his lip as he gripped a handful of his hair, "You know that meeting the Professor has with the SHIELD people? You'll never guess what I overhead Storm say to Mr. McCoy before she went to it!"

Kitty folded her arms, "What?"

Iceman motioned for Kitty to come out into the corridor, "I don't want the Mini-Wolverine to hear!"

Kitty sighed and looked at X-23, "I'll be back in a minute, put that on and then we'll find you a nice pair of pants!"

X-23 did as Kitty had told her. She had not worn civilian clothing in years and it felt unaccustomed soft and loose against her skin. She turned to Kitty's mirror and gasped as she her reflection. The girl in the mirror looked strange, not at all like someone who had lived in a underground training facility all her life, but normal. Was that Laura in the mirror, the girl X-23 might have been, and might yet be? She smiled brushing the soft fabric of the cardigan, Kitty was right she looked good in green.

"No!" Kitty's voice sounded shocked, upset even. She entered the room again, followed by Iceman. She was shaking her head, one hand in front of her mouth.

Concerned for her new friend X-23 approached her, "Kitty? Are you all right?"

Kitty's eyes narrowed as she looked at her and quickly averted her gaze, "Yeah, I'm all right. Listen, we'll have to finish this some other time, I wanna be alone." She brushed past X-23 walking towards her bed.

X-23 could not understand, what had brought that sudden mood swing over Kitty? Was it something she had done? "But, Kitty…" she took a step after her.

"Didn't ya hear?" shouted Iceman "Kitty wants to be alone!" he gripped X-23 arm and yanked her towards the door.

Kitty gasped, "Bobby, no!"

But it was already too late, X-23 had acted on the only instincts she knew. Quick as lightning she had popped out her claws and slashed down Iceman's lower arm. Blood gushed out of the wound and fell in thick stains on the carpet. Iceman, staring at X-23 with eyes the size of saucers took a step back and then blacked out.

X-23 looked at the boy lying in his own blood and then at her stained claws. "Kitty!" she turned to the other girl for comfort, help, anything, but Kitty shrunk back from her and started to scream. X-23 started to panic. The cut on Iceman's arm was not fatal and unlikely to leave any mark, but even so this slip could mean grave consequences for her. Would Professor Xavier send her back to SHIELD? Would Wolverine hate her for what she had done to Iceman? Would Kitty? Would now everybody treat her like a human time bomb again, only waiting for her to blow her fuse? She cringed, why couldn't Kitty stop screaming?

Overwhelmed by the whole situation X-23 belted out of the room, down the hallway and straight through the next best window she could find.

The SHIELD troops that were still loitering outside the school were alarmed by the braking window, but X-23 was too fast for them. Quickly diving into the foliage of Xavier's gardens she made her way to the other wall and scaled it. Before jumping over it and back into the outside world she briefly looked back at the school; a stately mansion atop a beautiful cliff, nestled in gardens and greenery. She clenched her teeth; it would have been nice to live there, to live like a normal girl. But she knew that could never be, she was not normal.

And with that, X-23 was gone.


	4. Chapter IV:Wolverine

**Chapter IV**

**Wolverine**

Once Fury's men had confirmed that the culprit of the disturbance at the dorm rooms had indeed been Laura, Wolverine had expected anything up to and including several dead bodies. After all, he remembered how he himself had been straight after his escape from Weapon X, if it hadn't been for Chuck it was quite possible that he would be like Sabretooth now. While X-23 was that much younger, there was no reason to believe that she would be any less dangerous. He cursed himself, what was he thinking of shooing her off to Kitty? If the Half-Pint was hurt….he gritted his teeth…. There would be enough time to mull about all that later. For now the mission was clear; contain, prevent, protect. All else was waste of energy.

Wolverine leaped through the corridor, the gale winds Ororo used to fly whipping around him and the thunder of Fury's and Scott's feet following behind. Reaching the stairwell he scaled the distance to the next floor with a single leap and a climb over the safety rail, allowing him, Ororo and Jean to reach the dorm rooms long before Fury. They burst into the middle of a heated discussion between two SHIELD troopers who had, somehow, arrived there before them (flaming SHIELD, they were everywhere) and Rogue, Kurt and

"…Kitty!" Jean called out as she landed on the floor, pushed past the two troopers and threw her arms around the other girl.

A colossal weight dropped from Wolverine's shoulders, Kitty was alright. In principle that was all that really mattered, however, the broken window opposite the stairwell was bound to mean bad news.

He suppressed a curse with a growl. "What happened here."

Kitty looked at him, "It's Laura! She…."

"I said shut up!" one of the soldiers yelled at her.

"Leave her alone, deadbeat!" hissed Rogue at the soldier.

This quickly devolved into a hopeless tangle of shouting voices as the trooper's colleague, Kurt and Jean joined in. To say that this was frustrating to would have been the understatement of the decade. Every muscle in Wolverine's body itched to pop out his claws and hack at the squabbling idiots until somebody would give him a decent answer. This was simply not funny. Somewhere out there was not just a girl who needed them, but a biological weapon that had to be contained before there would be any victims and all Fury's men did was bickering with teenagers!

In the end it took Ororo summoning a miniature rain shower to break the debate up. Rogue grumbled and Kitty whined something about her shoes, at least the trick had shut everyone up.

"Could now please somebody tell us what has happened here?"

Kitty opened her mouth again, but one of the troopers was faster to respond. "Sorry Ma'am, we have orders to only report to Colonel Fury!"

"Then please do so, agent," ordered Fury as he and Scott arrived on the scene. Scott too breathed in relied to see Kitty and the rest of his team mates unhurt.

The trooper stood attention, "Sir! X-23 has fled the facility after attacking and injuring one of the students."

Shit! So she had hurt somebody. At least injured did not mean killed.

Storm's right hand twitched towards her chest, 'Who was injured?"

"It was Bobby," answered Kitty, "he tried to hold her back and she sliced his arm open – but he's okay now I bandaged him. He's still passed out though."

"I'll take him to the infirmary," offered Jean, "where is he?"

"In Kitty's room," answered Rogue, "ah'll show ya."

"I'll get Mr. McCoy," Kurt chimed in and with this he and the two girls left.

Fury nodded, "Where did she go after assaulting that boy?"

"Duh!" declared Kitty, arms crossed, "Anybody noticing the big broken window in the hallway?

Fury raised an eyebrow at that, but ultimately chose to ignore Kitty's tone. Instead he turned to the trooper again, waiting for a more thorough answer.

"We have reports of our people outside shooting at the subject with tranquillizer darts. It proofed unsuccessful and X-23 escaped over the ground's wall into a south-eastern direction."

Fury's answer to that was interrupted by Scott stepping in, "Then we have no time to lose," he said and looked at Logan, "can you track her?"

Logan nodded "'course."

Scott continued with what turned out to be instructions, "Great! Ororo! You go and see if you can find her from the air. Kitty! Get Jean, Rogue and Kurt into this as soon as they've delivered Bobby to the infirmary. I'll see if I can find Amara and Sam, the more ground we can cover the better. I guess the Professor's already on to finding her. Colonel, any help from you and SHIELD…."

Finally he turned to, who didn't look at all happy with Scott's attempt to take the lead. "This won't be necessary, Mr. Summers. The tracking down and apprehension of mutant threats is SHIELD's department and we cannot accept help from a civilian school."

Scott tensed in such a subtle way that nobody apart from Wolverine was likely to notice it. "But we are trained for this! We have done it in the past! Countless times even!"

"And almost causing a national incident each time," was Fury's response.

"Regardless of that, back then you were tolerated because the public was unaware that mutants existed and you always cleaned up after yourselves. However, the game has changed and so have the rules. SHIELD will find the girl and we will take her back to the headquarters with us. This place is clearly not equipped to handle cases like her. The deal is off!"

At that point Wolverine was at loss whether to kick the wall in, slice Fury to bloody ribbons or laugh at him for thinking that any of the X-Men much less Logan himself would actually allow SHIELD to keep them away from X-23, one of their own. Surely Fury was putting on a show in front of his men and then quietly ask him and the rest of the X-Men to join in the search. He was not that dump.

As it turned out Fury was that dump, as he proved without a doubt by his next set of orders:

"Furthermore, in order for you and your students not to endanger themselves, I place everybody affiliated with this school under house arrest until SHIELD is finished with recruiting Freedom Force. Anybody who infringes on this order will be taken into custody. Now if you excuse me, Ladies. Gentlemen," he saluted at them and marched off with his two men in tow.

So Logan, Scott, Ororo and Kitty were left in the hallway to digest that cluster of bad news. Frankly, Logan did not understand what the problem was; the way he saw it, he would tell Fury were he can stuff his orders and then go and save the Kid. He looked at the other three who all stood there like empty bottles at the lost and found.

"So what are we waitin' for?" he finally asked.

Scott stretched the back of his head, "Well you heard Fury. If we do anything they'll lock us up."

Wolverine snorted, "It has happened before and you guys came after us and bust us out. Same thing here; even if they catch us, they cannot lock up all of the X-Men, somebody will get away from SHIELD."

"And then what, Logan?" asked Storm "Run? Hide, like common criminals?" she shook her head, "We cannot break clear orders from a government official."

"That's rich coming from you, Ororo!" Wolverine almost growled back, "Since this whole mess with SHIELD started all you have been doing is bitch and moan about how Chuck can dare selling out those _poor innocent _Brotherhood kids in order to keep us from being turned into the recruiting center for the feds' private mutant army and now you simply stand there and watch them hunt down a frightened girl who actually IS innocent? That's rich!"

Even though Storm took care not to react to Logan's accusations there were some tell-tale signs how close he had come to waken her wrath; a slight narrowing of her eyes, a barely noticeable drop in the temperature of the wind that came through the broken window, a darkening in the sky for just a moment. Scott stood there with his mouth hanging open, while Kitty excused herself to her room, once again mumbling something about her shoes.

It took a while for Storm to compose herself enough to respond, her voice was low and cold like a gale in a blizzard "Yes, I objected and continue to object to the agreement Charles has with SHIELD, as is my right. Likewise I object to the way Colonel Fury is handling the present situation. Laura is frightened and confused and the sight of SHIELD troopers is not likely to improve her mental state and who knows what might happen if she is pursued too aggressively. It is quite likely that she would respond better if she was approached by us, let alone the fact that it would be easier for us to find her between your heightened senses and Jean's telepathy. Yet the Colonel has spoken, and he is the representative of the law. If we are to live among ordinary people, if we even want to keep even as much as pretence of moral high ground above the likes of Magneto and Mystique, then we must obey that law. Else we'd be anarchist, separatists, and that path leads only to darkness. Surely even you must agree with that."

Of course he did. Of course Logan saw the sense in that and had been aware of that even before Ororo had panted it so clearly for him. If they now went after the Kid against Fury's orders then they would pretty much throw everything Chuck, and they, had worked for into the mud and trample around on it. It was pretty clear from an intellectual, rational point of view.

Yet, emotions were not rational. Logan was not rational. He had never been good at that, all he had was emotion and instinct and both of those told him that he had, simply had, to go after the Kid, no matter the consequences.

"You are right, Ororo" he grumbled, then he turned around and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" asked Scott.

"What does it look like?" he asked climbing into the broken window frame and started searching for traces of X-23.

"I thought you agreed with us that we can't disobey SHIELD?"

"I do," responded Logan as he caught X-23's smell in the wind, "however, they only said anything about people affiliated with Xavier's school; students, teachers. Tell Chuck I resign!" He leaped out of the window and into the trees.


	5. Chapter V:Carol

**Chapter V**

**Carol**

Agent Carol Danvers could not resist glancing at her reflection in the window of the storefront. Plucking around in her hair and tucking on her skirt she chuckled at the unfamiliar sight. Since she had been promoted to the position of a Field Leader for SHIELD's department for Meta Human Activities (MetHum for short) she did not get to wear civilian clothes too often anymore. Or leave the Helicarrier for that matter. In fact she had almost forgotten how it felt to walk on solid ground. Hopefully this would change once Fury had assembled his Freedom Force. After all Carol had requested to be placed in the MetHum in order to help people, humans and mutants, not to sit around some flying fortress all day and having seminars about genetics and group psychology forced down her throat. She wanted to be out here in the real world, where she could assist in containing this crisis or that, help people find a better way in life than become criminals or terrorists and save innocent lives.

Well, that was at least part of it. She looked down at the back of her left hand. A month earlier a piece of razor sharp shrapnel had cut right over it. She remembered how the cut had bled, she remembered the pain, yet there was no scar visible anymore. As it turned out Carol was a mutant herself, although a low-level one, with skin that was just a little bit more difficult to cut and was that much better at regenerating itself without scarring. Not as flashy as some of the stuff she had heard in the seminars about, weather manipulation and shape shifting came to her mind, but reason enough to be interested in the mutant cause. After, all, Dr. Risman had told her that it was likely that her children would turn out to be more powerful, and obvious, mutants. So Carol had figured if she should ever have children, she'd better start now to help making the world a better place for mutants, and she had every faith in SHIELD, or at least in Colonel Fury, to have similar goals.

Somebody whistling as they passed her tore Carol free from her reverie. She chuckled, that was another thing she missed cooped up in the Helicarrier; people actually seeing her as more than a professional. Of course she was not allowed to react to some passerby making a move on her, she was on a mission after all, but… maybe just one glance? She chuckled again, how would that poor guy react if she told him that she was a special agent for a government organization that dwarfed the CIA in power and secrecy? She turned her head just ever so slightly…

And she wished she hadn't done it. The passerby turned out to be some high school kid, eighteen or nineteen at most, scrawny, messy blondy-brown hair. Although Carol had to admit that most people that age reminded her of Stevie it was not funny how much that kid looked like her youngest brother had before he had enlisted in the army. It was while retrieving Stevie corpse form overseas when her hand had been struck by the piece of shrapnel. Another reason to transfer to the (comparably) save department of MetHum, sparing her mother the pain of burying a second child.

She started walking again scanning the crowd for X-23 the lost mutant child she had been sent out to locate. Chiding herself for getting distracted from her mission so easily she decided to walk towards the more woody area ahead of her next. X-23 was known for preferring woodlands for both travel and habitation. Oyster Bay was a lovely seaside town, but not exactly the place you would expect a mutant fugitive to turn up, but then again that was exactly why they had sent Carol there. That and because the mutant girl appeared to travel into that direction.

She had not reached the next traffic lights when her cell phone rang. Finally news from the headquarters! Even though it had been nice to walk among normal people again, even pretending to window shop became a tiresome chore if you were assigned to do so for well over two hours straight.

She quickly answered it, "Carol here."

"Uhm, yeah, this is Stacy, uh, I mean Agent Rowe. We have located X-23. She appears to be in Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park, you are the agent closest to that location."

Carol could literally feel the blood rushing into her veins. She had not seen any real excitement in too long. "I'll be on my way."

"Good, but we're sending you backup, just to be save. Your job is to keep X-23 in that park until the backup arrives. The other mutant, Wolverine, is still not accounted for, so be careful."

"Understood!" Carol hung up, and shook her head. Mutant or not, X-23 was a young girl, rocking up there with a whole platoon would just frighten her, Carol figured she had better chances confronting her alone, especially while dressed as a civilian. And Wolverine? Colonel Fury had always spoken highly of him, he would not harm her, especially since he\\they shared the common goal of keeping X-23 save.

With that in mind she returned to that car that had been given to her for the mission and drove to the park.

* * *

The Roosevelt Memorial Park turned out to be a beautiful little stretch of woodland on the shore of Oyster Bay Harbor, exactly the type of environment X-23 was likely to flock. The poor girl was probably scared senseless and sought out the type of place she associated most with security and happiness. And who could argue with her, with the sun shining through the leaves of the trees, the smell of the sea blowing through and the sea gulls screeching not far away this parkland really seemed like a little, New England flavored piece of paradise.

But before Carol could find X-23 she first had to confirm that she was even here. She got her SHIELD locator out of her handbag that would, hopefully, show the location of the chip that X-23, just like all personnel and prisoners of SHIELD, had implanted into her neck. These portable locators only covered a five mile radius, but were much more accurate and reliable than the satellite ones. She looked at the screen; there was a dot denoting her own position and. Yes! Just a few feet to her left another dot, X-23! She couldn't believe how close she had come without the girl noticing her and fleeing. Seems like she was right with her approach of confronting X-23 by herself in order to not scare her off.

She tried to remember what name Colonel Fury and Dr. Risman had given to X-23.

"Linda?" she called out, as she moved off the path and through the trees towards were the dot was "Linda, buddy? Don't be frightened, I'm here to help you, we can talk about…. Everything?"

Carol knitted her eyebrows, she had arrived in a small clearing, which aside from her and a small pile of clothes in the centre of it was empty.

She walked over to the pile and kneeled down to inspect it, it was a green wool cardigan and in the back of it was a spot of dried blood and X-23's location chip.

Carol smiled, "Impressive." X-23 had not only devised a pretty good way to trick SHIELD about her location, but she had removed the chip from the back of her neck herself. Smart and though. Most likely the girl wasn't anywhere close to Oyster Bay anymore, heck, Carol wouldn't be surprised if she was somewhere on the mainland instead. Figuring that there was nothing left for her to do in the park anymore Carol got up and got out her cell phone to call off the backup.

That was when Carol noticed something like a gigantic shadow in the corner of her eye. Next came a growl and a pain like nothing she had ever felt before in her back, like a whole squadron of shrapnel pieces ripping through her blouse and tearing off her flesh in large chunks. Feeling the air forced out of her lungs Carol collapsed to her knees and then face-first into the grass.

However, she was an agent of SHIELD and thus ready to jump back to her feet and fight back whatever hostile element she had encountered in not time. Only that whoever had slashed her also held her on the ground, their claws digging into the flesh of her shoulders, their hot, foul breath blowing against her skull.

"You're not the prey I wanted to catch," she could hear her attacker sniffing her hair, "but we'll still have fun."

That was when Carol Danvers was sure she was going to die that day. "See you soon, Stevie," was her last thought.


	6. Chapter VI:Ororo

**Chapter VI**

**Ororo**

Waiting and idleness did not come easily to Ororo Munroe. For almost three hours now one of her closest friends was lost without a trace, hunted for the crimes of impulsiveness and compassion by what abounded to the United States' secret military police. Said military police were also out to incarcerate a girl of just fourteen years for a simple mistake, and to top it off, at the moment even Ororo and every member of her surrogate family here at Xavier's school was more or less a hostage of SHIELD, for no crime at all besides existing. And then there was the fact that Bobby Drake was still unconscious, despite the fact that X-23's claws had merely scratched a bit of skin. Both Hank and Charles were clueless, finding no fault on Bobby's body nor mind. They were only able to conclude that the boy had, for some reason, entered a sort of dormant state of, as they put it, indefinite duration. Ororo buried her face in her hands. Indefinite! Even the possibility of such a young life snuffed out by what seemed little more than a random quirk of nature! Sometimes it was hard to believe in the Bright Lady's mercy.

Chiding herself for that last thought Ororo finished the last drop of her tea, walked into the centre of her attic and raised her arms to summon a miniature rain shower. Watching the rain water her multitude of plants, she reminded herself that the Bright Lady was not to blame for the current events, no; Ororo's consciousness reminded her that the fault lay, in a way, by herself. According to Kitty, the situation with X-23 had fallen apart when Bobby told Kitty about the deal Charles had with Colonel Fury concerning the Brotherhood, and where had Bobby learned about that? He had overheard Ororo when she, in her frustration about the whole mess, had complained to Hank about it! Not only had Ororo, in her disgust about sacrificing five young lives potentially destroyed two more, but she had also marred Kitty's tranquility. The poor girl blamed herself for what happened, and had remained on Bobby's side since the accident.

Winds mixed with the rain, spraying Ororo's face and exposed arms with water vapor. Finding the touch soothing Ororo slipped out of her robe, letting the garment glide to the floor and stepped into the rain, hoping to find some of her lost tranquility in the familiar sensation. Yet there was no tranquility, only more remorse. Names and faces flashed into her mind; Kitty, Bobby, X-23, Logan, the Brotherhood and Evan, her own flesh and blood. She had failed to protect each and every one of them, she who fancied herself a guardian of all that lives! She had not joined Charles Xavier's dream to sit by while ill fate and inhumane regulations mangled those she cared for! No she had become an X-Man because it seemed to her as a position that would enable her to make a change for the better, to be of use to others. Yet she squandered that chance like this. Oh, how she wished to be as reckless as Logan and fight for the things she believed in against all odds, even the hopeless ones, or else to be as wise as Charles and able to comprehend the whole picture he seemed to have in mind. She felt so inadequate, so weak, so trapped!

Crying out Ororo made her anguish room by summoning a colossal lightning bolt that cut through the air outside her attic's skylights. Instantly she felt her body relax, even if she strove to not let her powers get the best of her, being a Weather Witch had its advantages. At least a controlled lightning bolt like that was less likely to have unforeseen consequences in the future than thoughtless venting to a friend. She dispersed her rain, which had grown stronger and stronger in concert with her inner tumult, out of fear to defoliate the more delicate ones among her plants, dried herself using a gale wind and walked over to the dresser to put on her uniform. She would not storm out without a word like Logan, but she had decided that she would make it clear to Colonel Fury, and to the rest of SHIELD that she would no longer sit by as members of her team were in peril. She had no doubt her fellow X-Men would join her.

She was just walking down the stairs to the mansion's uppermost hallway when she sensed someone attempting to connect with her mind.

"_Ororo can you hear me?" _It was Jean.

"_I can. Is there any news concerning Logan or X-23?" _

"_No," _was the answer, _"but Bobby woke up! Come down to the main infirmary, the rest of the X-Men are already there, the Professor and I will join you soon."_

It was like a layer of thick, dark clouds was lifted from Ororo's mind. Thanking the Bright Lady she continued in her way, more confident in the future than before.

* * *

The main infirmary was located in the school's system of secret basements. Unlike the one located in the main building, the one parents saw on school tours, its capacities and purposes went far beyond a common school infirmary. The room was spacious enough to harbor up to a dozen heavily injured patients at once and supplied to treat grievous injuries like amputations as well as autopsies. The first and, so far, last time it was used was the aftermath of the battle against Apocalypse, when Ororo herself had been confined to one of its beds. She felt a chill; the clinical sterility of that place, the way it was so obviously underground and hermetically sealed from the rest of the complex. She had been thankful to leave it behind and it seemed strange to her that they had brought Bobby there of all places. Then again maybe Hank just wanted to watch over his patient without SHIELD agents, who at present roamed the mansion at will, pestering him with inquires about Bobby's condition.

The first person Ororo encountered upon entering the infirmary was Scott who, to Ororo's surprise was also dressed in his X-Men uniform.

"Hey, Ororo," he greeted her, "Jean and the Professor aren't here yet."

Ororo nodded in answer and walked past him towards the beds. She sighed in relief; Bobby was indeed awake and, as seemed fine otherwise too. He already sat up in the hospital bed, surrounded by Kitty, Rogue and Kurt as well as two members of the non-combatant student body; Sam Guthrie and Ray Crisp. Hank was present too, hanging upside down from a piece of rope not far away from the beds, absorbed into some computer work.

The first thing noticed that the three members of the field team also were dressed in their uniforms, and she started to wonder if Jean had forgotten to relay some part of the message to her. The second thing she noticed was that Bobby's right arm, the one X-23 had scratched, was coated in ice.

Bobby smiled when he saw Ororo. "Ms. Munroe! Check this out; I'm see-through!" He held his hand in front of his face, the appendage was bluish white and completely transparent, allowing her to see his face through it like through a window of milky glass. Bobby's arm was not coated in ice; it was made of it, like a part of a crystal sculpture!

A distinctive thud was heard as Hank leaped from his rope "It seems that young Robert's arm has turned into a sort of," he held up his large hands in cluelessness, "organic, non-melting type of ice."

"It started at the cuts," explained Kitty, "I saw the whole thing. At first it seemed just like a weird kind of wound scab, but then it started to convert the surrounding tissue into ice too," she grimaced "at one point I could see his veins and muscles and stuff. It was pretty gross."

"Thankfully it stopped at the elbow," continued Hank, "because as of now we have found no way to reverse the process."

Bobby wiggled his fingers, the ice crystals catching and reflecting the bright light of the infirmary brilliantly, "I can still move it though."

"My best guess so far is that the Adamantium in X-23's claws caused some sort of allergic reaction in Bobby's body and his mutant power reacted with that in an unconventional manner," Hank shrugged his shoulders," which would also explain the temporary loss of consciousness."

"Great," said Ray and chuckled "and all I get is a rash and droopy eyes whenever I eat peanuts. I wanna turn into living lightning too!"

Kitty smirked, "We could ask Laura to stab you in the foot and hope for the best."

Bobby's smile disappeared, "Hey, Ororo, I heard what happened with SHIELD and all. You're not gonna let them take away the Mini-Wolverine, right? I mean it was an accident and I'm fine, really!" he waved his ice-arm about.

Ororo was glad that Bobby did not bear a grudge against X-23 for injuring him and that none of the other students seemed especially afraid of her.

"We will do what we can," she assured him.

"And what about Logan?" asked Rogue the tone in her voice made it clear that she already knew the answer, understood that Logan had, basically, committed a crime against federal law by disobeying SHIELD. Of course Ororo would not give up fighting for her friend, but it looked grim.

The whole group remained silent for a bit afterward, Logan was infamous for the difficulty of his training missions, but he would be missed.

"Hey!" Bobby quipped up, "Rogue, let me touch you!" He stretched out his ice hand towards Rogue's face.

The girl withdrew, her face darkened in sudden alarm, "Are ya nuts?!"

"I wanna see if my ice-form is immune to your powers!"

"Not worth the try, Frosty!" said Rogue and snorted at the thought, "the last time Ah absorbed ya mind Ah heard static in the back of mah brain for days! Let alone the fact that ya lack of spelling skills made me sign mah English homework with 'Rouge'!"

Everybody laughed at that. Ororo envied the ease with which those children handled the situation, she had heard that many people found laughter a good way to deal with stress.

It was then that the sound of the door opening caused Ororo to turn around; Charles and Jean entered the room. Ororo stepped forward to great them only to find that following them were two more people; the first a young woman in a SHIELD uniform, her eyes were red and swollen from crying and she sobbed loudly. And behind her, Ororo could feel her body tense up, Colonel Fury looking just as somber, but less angry than when he had placed the X-Men under house arrest. He countered her look, Ororo was not used to people looking her directly into the eye.

Ororo was not the only one who stirred up at the arrival of the two SHIELD agents, Kitty shrunk together, Ray gulped audibly, Scott was the only one who seemed not intimidated by Fury as he stepped to Ororo's side.

"Colonel Fury? What gives us the honor?" the tone of Scott's voice was neutral and diplomatic, it had no tension in it at all

Ororo wished she could share Scott's calmness, why hadn't Jean mentioned Fury's presence when she had contacted her mentally? What was going on?

"Colonel Fury and Agent Rowe here have news concerning the search for Laura and Logan," explained Charles, his voice seemed calm too, but Ororo knew him well enough to know it was forced.

"And a request for your assistance," added Fury still not breaking eye contact with Ororo.

"But ya grounded us earlier," Rogue crossed her arms, "why ask our help now?"

Now Fury finally withdrew his gaze from Ororo looking into the round instead, "Sabretooth has joined the hunt."


	7. Chapter VII:Wolverine

**Chapter VII**

**Wolverine**

Unlike Fury's field agents, who had actually fallen for the false trail Laura had laid out for them and were off on a wild goose chase towards Peconic Bay, Logan actually managed to follow her to her actual destination; New York City. He had managed to do this not just because of his heightened senses, but also because, unlike the SHIELD people, he, to some extend knew how the Kid worked. In fact it was almost uncanny how much her tactic to escape, laying false trails, going into the most unexpected direction and all that, were [ identical to the way he had made his run from SHIELD way back when. He wondered what caused this similarity in behavior; was it the similar training Weapon X and Hydra had put them through? Was it genetics, inheritance of brain chemistry, instincts and all that? Or had she just read about his escape in some SHIELD file?

Logan kind of liked the theory that the Kid had somehow inherited his skills in stealth and escaping. He had always preferred Jean-Baptiste Lamarck to Charles David; the idea that improving yourself also benefited your prodigy and that humanity was the product of a long, shared effort of which mutants were the latest fruit instead of just a cosmic plaything of random mutation. It just sounded so much nicer and more hopeful and fit so much better with his personal philosophies, so of course it was probably bullshit.

He stopped in front of an alleyway and glanced briefly to his left and right. The street was virtually empty, just another patch of abandoned industrial growth in Brooklyn, a victim of recent geo-political and economical developments. Good. Logan did not want anybody to see him and maybe follow him, the less people that were dragged into this, the better. Digging his fists into the pockets of his jacket Logan made a low growl and dove into the alley.

In movies and TV, alleyways were sometimes portrayed as ominous, mythical places, the dragon's lair of the modern urban landscape were it was always night, with steam rising from the holes of a manhole cover. It was the escape route for the urchin hero fleeing unjust persuasion by the police, the meeting place of gangs for councils of war, the abode of the modern day Juliet looking out for her lover from atop a fire escape. Logan chuckled at that; most of the time reality was less exciting, less romantic in a way. Sure, some trappings of the fantasy were present in the alley Logan traversed; the graffiti on the walls, the crumbling brick façade of the building to his left, the steel ladder that led up to the roof of the abandoned warehouse to his right, promising freedom and release from the narrow streets below. However beyond that there was nothing special about the place; a grey basin of cracked concrete, filled with waste and trash and with the smell to match. It wasn't even shady at the moment, the sun beat straight into it and had done so for the entire day, painting cracks into the concrete and boiling the garbage in its bags.

And then there was the stuff urban romantics often tended to gloss over; in the shadow of a garbage container Logan saw the figure of a young man, still a boy even, sleeping or passed out, a gangly grey cat perching on his chest. The markings of his lifestyle were obvious; sunken cheeks, stringy hair, spindly arms full of needle marks. Lamarck better be right with his theory of inheritable skills, Laura would need it to survive the city. On a different day, Logan might have attempted to beat some sense into the junkie, futile as it would have been, but today he had to look out for his own first.

His own? Was that what he was doing, looking out for his own? Did that include walking out on what amounted to his adopted family to go after just one person? He wasn't proud about doing that, who knew what trouble his actions would get Chuck and the X-Men into? Was a bogus attempt to help Laura escaping SHIELD worth risking the freedom of Rogue, Kitty, Kurt and all the others? Even if he found her in time, what would he do then? He couldn't go back to Xavier's with her and he couldn't keep her hidden from SHIELD forever. Heck, truth be told, he wouldn't be able to save himself from SHIELD if they decided they wanted him back. And suppose they could evade SHIELD, perhaps by escaping down to South America or Japan or wherever, what then? Living in the wilderness as animals? Selling their skills as bounty hunters? Was that a good life, a good future for a child? So, if he couldn't guaranty any improvement, with what right did he risk bringing SHIELD's vengeance on himself and the X-Men? With what right did he even choose the Kid's life over the junkie back at the garbage container?

He sighed deeply as he looked up at the half collapsed factory that was his destination. It was easy to answer why; he cared for the kids at Xavier's, but unlike them Laura was his, a part of him, made from his genes, the closest he would ever had to a child, or any actual family for that matter. She was worth risking and losing his soul for. Thankfully that wouldn't be necessary today. His opponent was not the devil, no, but someone much more vulgar and much more familiar to him.

"You'd better not have touched a single hair on her head, Creed!" He extended his claws, kicked the door open and rolled into the factories entrance hall. Back on his feet Wolverine hastily looked around him, but, apart from his scent, there was no trace of Sabretooth in the reception hall and the wide, empty corridor extending from it.

"Why you're hiding, bub? Afraid to face me?" growled Wolverine as he walked down the hallway. "I got your sick little message!" he pulled the piece of human skin Sabretooth had left in his path_, "And once I find out what you did to the poor sod you peeled it off, you'll be lucky if all I do is skinning you!"_ He added mentally. "I followed your tracks to this place! I'm here! So where's the Kid?"

He sliced the door to the main production hall open and stepped through it. "Show your ugly mug, bub, or I swear I'll…. GOD!"

The picture that offered itself to Wolverine's eyes in the production hall was one of horror and perversion; the floor of the hall, the walls, the conveyor belts; all was painted in chaotic swirls of blood, some of it fresh, some of it already drying, all of it human and all from the same person judging by the scent. On the windows, high above, close to the ceiling, Sabretooth had even splattered so much of it that it darkened the light falling into the room, except for one single, concentrated beam of light that fell directly on the industrial exhaust vault on the opposite side of the room. There it bathed the centre-piece of the artwork in a halo of almost heavenly light; the body of a young woman, naked, cut open and half-flayed, suspended in mid air by metal chains that connected her raw limbs to the ceiling. Now Wolverine thought he had a good idea who the skin Sabretooth had written his invitation on belong to and - By the stinking devil! That woman was moving, straining against her bonds! She was still alive!

Wolverine had known Victor Creed, Sabretooth, as long as he could remember back, longer probably, given his sketchy memory, and he had seen the aftermath of enough of his rampages. What made the current different was that usually Creed was all about shredding people into bloody bits as fast as he could and then running off after the next victim. It wasn't a pleasant way to die and something very few, if any, of Sabretooth's victims deserved, but at least it was fast. With this however, Sabretooth had taken his time, and probably enjoyed every single moment of agony he had wrung from his victim too. This was cold blooded torture, he would have never thought that Creed would sink that low!

"Ms.?" he addressed the woman. She only stirred in answer. "Ms. You are save now, I'm getting you outta here!" He raised his claw to slice through the first of the chains.

"No!" the woman's voice was surprisingly strong and clear, but she was clearly in shock. "No! Get out of here!"

Wolverine severed the first chain, catching the falling woman and supporting her side with one arm, while raising his free one to sever the next fetter, "Don't worry, it will only take a moment and then I'll get you to a hospital." He picked he helped her to the ground, hoping that a moment of rest would help her regain her senses.

Her open wounds smudged the grey of the concrete floor with red, for a moment she just crouched there, trembling.

Wolverine took off his jacket, "Put that on!"

She looked up to him, her eyes were hidden behind matted strands of blond hair, but they positively burned.

"You don't understand, Wolverine! This is a trap, Sabretooth is after you. You and the girl."

Wolverine cursed. "You're from SHIELD!"

"Get out of here! Leave before he comes back!"

"Too late!" the voice came from straight behind Wolverine's right ear. Sabretooth pounced at him just like his prehistoric namesake would at a prey animal. But Wolverine was not a prey animal, he was a fighter himself! Letting his instincts take over he turned towards Sabretooth and slashed at him. Two growls of pain echoed through the empty hall. Wolverine could feel as the right side of his face started to sting and swell. If he wasn't mistaken, he had gotten Creed up the left arm; neither strike was deadly. He spun around to where Sabretooth had dove into a thicket of sliced-up conveyor belts, he was nowhere to be found.

"Get out of your hiding place and fight me like a man, you scum!" Wolverine bellowed into the room. Normally he would just fight Sabretooth off and then get the wounded agent to a hospital, this time however, Wolverine actually felt like finishing his private war with Sabretooh, once and for all.

He felt someone tugging his foot. He whirled around, it was the SHIELD agent.

"Don't fight him!" she half begged, half commanded, "he took my…"

Wolverine would not find out what Sabretooth had taken from the agent, as she had, unwilling, but effectively, provided a good distraction for Sabretooth's next attack on Wolverine who jumped his rival from behind this time.

Wolverine rolled into a ball, attempting to throw off his opponent. For a few agonizing moments the world was nothing but pain and rage and adrenalin as silver adamantium and dirty black keratin likewise sliced through cloth and skin, fists and boots smashed bones and canine teeth tore on exposed muscle. All the while Wolverine could not help but think that, compared to their usual fighting, Creed seemed like he was holding back, like if this time he wasn't out for the kill. But, that was probably just the extra shot of adrenaline Wolverine's rage pumped into his system speaking.

Finally Sabretooth broke the brawl by gripping hold of Wolverine's arms and hauling the smaller mutant several feet through the hall. The impact pressed all the air from Wolverine's lungs, but he made a good effort to get up again as quickly as he could.

A good effort….but not good enough, as Sabretooth was already above him and jammed something into Wolverine's arm.

At first Wolverine was not planning to pay any heed to whatever Sabretooth had stabbed him with until after the fight was over as he used his legs to kick Sabretooth away and rolled back on his feet, only to collapse again as quickly as he got up. An unusual daze clouded Wolverine's mind, and the area where Sabretooth had stabbed him! It must have been something containing poison for Wolverine could literally feel as something incredibly foul and unnatural entered his veins and flooded his whole body. He looked at the half-empty tranquilizer dart in his biceps, it dripped with a fluorescent-green liquid. He didn't understand, what was that stuff? Shouldn't his healing factor have taken care of it by now? His vision went blurry. The lights in his mind slowly went out, one by one. He could hear Sabretooth laughing, it sounded hollow, echoing, as if from somewhere far away.

"A power inhibition serum, runt," Creed sneered, "just one of the weapons your human allies never cared to tell you about."

The world went dark.


	8. Chapter VIII:X-23

**Chapter VIII**

**X-23**

Even though X-23 would have preferred to lose herself in some nice, secluded woodland, she had to acknowledge that travelling through a densely populated like New York City had its peaks. No matter how remote a forest area was, it would have been only a matter of time till some nosy huntsman or hiker brought SHIELD on her trail by spreading rumours about a "feral child". After all that was how they had caught her the last time. Here on Coney Island Beach, however, she just seemed as one of a multitude of teenagers enjoying a nice summer evening. X-23 mused on that fact; there was solitude in crowds and a way to be hidden in plain sight. It was not long before this anonymity made X-23 feel secure enough to let her guard down and return to let her senses take reign of her world, allowing herself to wholly live in the moment.

And what a moment it was! A child of mountain and forest X-23 had seldom ventured to the sea, so its sight was still a wonder for her. She turned her face into the wind, feeling the warmth of the setting sun on her skin. Even if this place was tainted by civilisation, nature was still present, like the waters of a deep lake under a thin sheet of ice. Even though the beach was filled with voices and noise, X-23's advanced hearing could pick up the cries of gulls and the breaking of waves behind that. Even though the air was, at least to her, heavy with pollution, she could also smell the saltwater in the wind. Finally she flipped off her shoes and dug her feet deep into the sand, making her way from the promenade to where the waves touched the sand, tip-toeing in the surf. For the first time in too long, X-23 was at peace.

But, if she liked it or not, X-23 was not an animal and did not live in a universe made of purely of sensory impression and instinct. She was, after all, human, no matter how hard she tried to run away from it or how much Hydra had tried to strip it from her. And humans do not have the luxury of living solely in the moment.

Soon X-23 found her tranquillity stolen from her as past and future invaded her world. The first emotion that assaulted her like that was anxiety about the future. Sure, she was safe from SHIELD for now, but what about the next day? How long would it take for somebody to notice a girl of fourteen wandering the streets alone at night? How long till a concerned policeman would pick her up or till some criminal tried to assault her and she would be forced to defend herself? Both of these possibilities would only result in SHIELD getting wise on her location and caging her again. She supposed she could hide among the Morlocks, that group of mutants she had read about in SHIELD's files that had set up their own little village in New York's underground. She shook her head, no, that would, again mean to be part of a community full of people that could hurt her and be hurt by her, the exact reason she had fled Professor Xavier's school.

And that was when guilt and shame and disappointment got grip on X-23's soul. What she had done in Shadowcat's room was maybe not the worst case scenario, but it was likely to blow any chance she might have had for a life among people. Most people at the school had been afraid of her before she had attacked Iceman with little to no provocation, how would they react to her now? She was used to people looking at her with fear, to regard her as a living weapon, something to be caged and restrained, so it was something special that so many people had tried to reach out to her; Colonel Fury who had risked both his position as head of his department and his reputation to enable her to even set foot on Xavier's grounds, the Professor himself who admitted her to his school, even though he knew the risks, Shadowcat who had treated her like a normal fellow student and Wolverine. She sniffed as she felt her eyes starting to sting. Wolverine who had been there to prevent her first escape attempt, Wolverine who had picked out Shadowcat to look after her, Wolverine who was the only family she really had, her father.

And how had she repaid them all? By doing exactly what everybody, including herself had been afraid she would do; by biting the hand that had tried to feed her! Maybe she was a monster, maybe she deserved to be locked away and forgotten, maybe she even belonged back with Hydra. She turned away from the sun and the wind, she was sick of the ocean for now.

She hastily crossed back over the beach to where she had left her shoes, put them back on and continued in her journey to nowhere. Soon she discovered a wharf that extended from the promenade to the sea. With the sun blinking through its wooden pillars the area below the wharf almost seemed like a small grove in a forest. Latching on to the vague feeling of familiarity that radiated from the place X-23 dove under it and leaned against one of the pillars. For a short while this could be her hiding spot. To one part of her this was a small triumph, another successful step in the game of hunter and hunted that was her life. Her other half, meanwhile, burned with shame. Humans were not supposed to run and hide from their troubles, they were supposed to face them, at least that was what Wolverine had done. She had failed him so miserably.

That was when X-23 noticed a shadow falling on her.

"Hey there, why the long face?"

It was a fortunate coincidence that X-23 had chosen to attack with the claw in her foot instead of the claws in her hands. This slight delay of a few milliseconds allowed her to register that the voice, and the frame of the shadow, belonged to someone too young to pose any real danger. She retracted her claw again and turned around to find herself face to face with a boy of her own age smiling at her.

X-23's glared at him, "What do you want?" she did not have time to play with children and hoped her tone of voice would be enough to chase him off.

To her frustration the boy did not seem intimidated, his smile did not vanish, nor did he back down. "I'm Chase," he stretched out his hand to her, "what's your name?"

X-23 groaned and turned away, "None of your business!"

Still the boy did not back down, "Listen, me and my friends are going to the boardwalk, wanna come along?"

"Leave me alone!"

That was when the boy made a huge mistake; he grabbed her arm. Instincts kicked in, she growled she extended her claws, just like with Iceman she was ready to go for blood. Her mind was red fury and rage. But then, just as she spun around, ready to shred the boy to pieces an image appeared at the very back of her mind. Wolverine's eyes, the way he had looked at her after their first fight, the way he had looked at her earlier that day. Somehow this image calmed her, helped her fight the rage within her, it was almost like she could hear his voice in her mind, telling her that she was stronger than the programming Hydra had forced into her. Realising what she was doing, X-23 used the whole of her conscious being in a desperate attempt to stem the tide of her rage. She stopped her claws less than an inch in front of the boy's face.

She let her claws sink again. "I will not be touched. "

It was unlikely the boy had comprehended what she had just said, as he continued to stare at her claws for a few more moments. It made X-23 uncomfortable and she wanted to walk away. But just as she retracted her claws the boy seemed to snap out of his trance. A weird smile grin appeared on his face.

"You're a mutie?" his speech pattern turned uncomfortably fast and enthusiastic, "that's so cool! Those claws are sick! Are they metal?" He grabbed her hand again, "Wait till we show my friends! They'll love you!"

For a moment X-23 did not know what happened to her, her confusion allowing the boy to drag her a few steps out into the sand. She had just threatened that boy's life and he was happy about that? How stupid was that child? She tore her hand free from his grip and backed away.

He turned around, visibly confused "What's up?" he said and laughed. "With claws like that there's no need to be shy. Let's go!"

X-23 was still torn between simply running away or mauling the boy for being stupid enough to taunt someone like her when a huge whirl of sand blew into her face.

Her eyes stung, she squinted and shielded them with her hand. Through the swirling sand she could see a tall, broad figure towering over her and the boy. As the sand settled and her vision cleared she could tell that the figure was a ragged looking man with matted blond hair. His canine teeth and black claws made it certain that he was a mutant and X-23 also knew which mutant he was; Sabretooth; Wolverine's former partner in Weapon X and an independent agent for Magneto, Hydra and anybody else that cared to pay him. Her claws itched to unsheathe.

Sabretooth leaped between X-23 and the boy and picked the child up at his collar. "The girl's with me, genetrasht!" he growled and threw the boy a few feet into the sand. Getting helped back up by his friends, the boy finally had the sense to run away.

X-23 felt a bit insulted that the boy had responded to Sabretooth's threats but not hers, after all, she was the one with the adamantium claws. At present, however, she had more urgent problems. She extended her claws, both those in her hands and her feet and took on a defensive stance as Sabretooth faced her.

Sabretooth chuckled. "So you are Logan's pup eh?" he causally measured her up from top to toe, apparently not even thinking of attacking her or defending himself, "you're short enough."

He beckoned to her with his dirty, black claws "Well, come along, you little mutt."

X-23 gritted her teeth and shook her head. She did not understand.

"I have Logan," explained Sabretooth, "locked away and slowly bleeding to death without his healing factor." He nonchalantly walked closer to her and begun to circle her. "I used that nice power inhibition serum SHIELD has developed. Got it from one of Fury's angels. She's there too, suffering the same fate as Logan." He took a strand of her hair and sniffed it. "You smell so much like the Runt it's not funny."

X-23 growled and whirled away from him, ready to attack.

Sabretooth's mouth widened into a huge smirk, his fangs and talons dripping with saliva."You don't wana fight me here, Pup."

"Why?"

Sabretooth gestured to their left and right, "Collateral damage. If you're anything like the Runt you'd have a huge problem with that."

X-23 looked around, a huge crowd had gathered to watch their fight; young, old, there were even people with children. She growled. Why was humanity so dumb? Anomals would at least have the sense to flee!

She retracted her claws, "How do I know you really have Wolverine?"

Sabretooth's eyes light up and he reached into his coat. He drew an object out of it and threw it at her.

X-23 caught it. It was a severed human ear. She looked at Sabretooth. That could not really be...?

As if to answer her question, Sabretooth nodded, "Check the scent if you don't believe me."

She smelled the ear. Yes, it was Wolverine's.

"If you ever wanna see the Runt again, you come with me now."

"Why would you take me to him?"

There was another one of Sabretooth's slobbering grins, "I want him to watch me kill you."

It hit X-23 as if someone had stabbed her in the chest. Of course. It made sense. She had read enough about Wolverine's history and Sabretooth's psychological profile to know that there was nothing too dirty, too horrifying that Sabretooth would not use it in an attempt to torture Wolverine.

Somewhere far off police sirens sounded. Somebody had felt threatened by the presence of mutants on peaceful Coney Island Beach.

"If the police gets involved Logan's gonna be dead meat by the time either of us gets to him," Sabretooth closed in on her again, "unless you want him to croak you come along now."

X-23 let her head sink and nodded. She knew she had no choice. So she allowed Sabretooth to put his arm around her and lead her off, away from the ocean and the crowd.

Not long after, the arriving police was happy to learn that the mutant incident had solved itself.

* * *

By the time X-23 and Sabretooth had arrived at their destination (an abandoned factory) the girl was sick to her stomach from Sabretooth's Hydra-tainted smell. At least he had not talked. One of the aspects X-23 had hated most the various agents of both SHIELD and Hydra was that they would always chatter so much after they captured her. Those from Hydra were more likely to gloat and speak about rather than to her, much like you would treat a trophy. SHIELD agents on the other hand, more often directly addressed her, trying to calm her down or assuring her that she was safe now. To X-23 both was just like rubbing salt in a wound. They had captured her, they had won, could they not at least let her suffer her defeat in peace? Thankfully Sabretooth was pragmatic in his victory, if there had been any way for her to ignore his claws digging into the flesh of her arm, she might have fooled herself into thinking she was alone. She knew Sabretooth was as far opposite of Wolverine as possible in terms of ideology, but there was a undeniable similarity in the way both of them handled fighting and hunting. Perhaps the only difference was the criteria after which they chose their prey.

Gazing up at the abandoned factory they were about to enter X-23 felt her heart sink. This place with its concrete and pollution and steel and glass was so contrary to her very being that it almost physically hurt her. She thought that there must have been something fundamentally wrong with Sabretooth's very being to enable him to use such a ravaged place as his lair. Up until that point she had held on to the hope that she would somehow be able to defeat the older mutant, that she would free Wolverine and his healing factor would kick in again and they would leave New York behind to make a life for themselves, somewhere where it was green and silent and beautiful. As Sabretooth led her into the factory's main hall, with its half-demolished machines and cables and the blood he had smeared all over the place (some of which was most likely Wolverine's) she felt that hope wither and die within her. She knew not much about religion, but she had heard of hell. If someone asked her to describe hell to them, she would picture a place like this; a place of death and torture, where even nature only went to die.

She looked around the hall. Aside from her and Sabretooth nobody was there. Where was Wolverine? She looked up to Sabretooth, the saliva between his teeth dripped down on her.

"Tag. Got you."

There was a instant of pain in X-23's back, soon replaced by the familiar, venomous feel of SHIELD's power inhibitor spreading through her body and shutting down her healing factor. She found it hard to breath. Black spots were in her vision. Sabretooth's claws tore at her flesh. She called out and elbowed her opponent into his most vulnerable part. He released her for a moment. A moment was enough. Ignoring the inhibitor poisoning her body she ran across the hall, the echo of her feet stomping across the concrete floor turning into a maddening drum rhythm in her ears. She only had to keep Sabretooth at bay until the inhibitor stopped working. She was young. She was fit. She would survive.


	9. Chapter IX:Carol

**Chapter IX**

**Carol**

Carol Danvers found it a bit unfair that she had been sent to hell. Sure she had been no angel in life; she had hurt people mentally and physically, some of them family and friends. She had lied, most often to make herself seem more grand than she actually was. She had stolen a dress when she was a teenager and there was that one time she and some others of her unit got smashed and drove that car through the wall of a house, causing heaps of property damage. But she had been no devil either! All she had ever hoped for was to be of service to others and to her country. She always tried to cheer Stacy up, she donated to charity, she even broke for animals for crying out loud! Yet in the end her live had evidently not added up in her favor. Maybe it was her punishment for not being able to protect Stevie.

What seemed like a long time ago she had died, bled to death on the cold floor of some factory building. She was sure she was dead, there had been the light and the tunnel and the whole spiel, so to say. And at first she was relieved, of course she had not been happy to die, after all she was still young and in the prime of her life. But at that point she had been in such agony from Sabretooth clawing and flaying her and dragging her across half of New York State that she was ready to welcome any source of solace with open arms. She did feel bad for her parents having to bury yet another child, she felt sorry for the older brother she left behind. But on the other hand she would be reunited with the brother she had already lost. Oh how she would kick Stevie's ass for disobeying his superior and getting himself killed!

That was when she, in her arrogance, had still expected that she would go to heaven. It had even seemed like some sort of angel had come to lift her up from the floor and help her on her journey to the afterlife. It was all really too blurry to remember now, but she did recall the angel's voice; gentle and kind and, oddly enough, with a Southern accent. She was familiar enough with the bible passage that said good people would be "as angels in heaven" after death, and she had been relieved to find out that the individual self did survive ascension, but she was a bit surprised that this survival even extended to languages and accents. He had apologized to her as he carried her through the tunnel. At first she had not understood why he apologized, but then they had stepped over to the other side. The first indicator that something was wrong had been that Carol's pain had not left her, her whole body had continued to feel crushed and torn and raw. That was not right, heaven was supposed to heal all suffering and dry all tears. That was when she had noticed the foul smell and the darkness. Still, the human mind, especially in situations like that, was nearly infinite in its ability to misinterpret and fool itself. It had taken an appearance by Satan himself to break the realization that she was really in Hell to Carol. She could not remember much. Red eyes. Three red eyes in the darkness and something twitching like spider legs.

Satan examined the guy in front of Carol and the angel, probably another damned soul and sounded awfully pleased with him. Over her, his eyes only passed briefly, but long enough to make her shutter with their coldness. Weirdly enough, while hell smelled of waste and decay, Satan smelled quite nice, at least in comparison. It reminded her of a hospital room. Clinically, chemically sterile.

"Leave her here. I will examine her later." Even Satan's voice was unusually thin sounding. Not what Carol had expected the Prince of Darkness to sound like. The angel dumped her on a hard metal bed and apologized again. And that was the last thing Carol had heard or seen of anybody.

For a while Carol had thought it a bit odd that she was simply cast aside like that. What made the other damned soul more worthy of attention than her? But then it had dawned on her; was this, the way she was left lying in a ,corner like a broken doll to suffer silently and collect dust, perhaps her own personal hell? Her whole body shuddered.

She did not know how long she had been left like that, what did time really mean in a place that was eternity? For most of her stay on her cold metal bed she was convinced that it would last forever, but slowly, very slowly something unusual happened. In the very deepest pit of her feverish torment she could feel something….alive. Alive and green and growing and healing. At first it was very small, a little sapling in the eye of the storm. But soon it grew and spread enfolding the parts of her body that had been flayed by Sabretooth. It was like she could feel her skin mending; nerve-endings knitted themselves together, layers of protective fat and skin cells covering them once again. She was healing!

As her body mended like that, her senses came back to her too. It was all still kind of dizzy and blurry, but she was sure she could hear a mechanical humming noise, something like a fridge or a air conditioner, and something dripping, liquid dripping in slow, regular intervals. Why would Hell have any need of air conditioning? She chided herself for being stupid like that; she was not dead, she had merely been abducted! All she needed to know was if those people worked with Sabretooth or if they had just been opportunists who had stumbled over a naked, helpless woman and decided to take her. And then of course she needed to find out where they had brought her, because from the smell, she sure was not in Brooklyn anymore. She tried to stand up, but her blurry vision, along with her wrecked sense of balance would not allow it. That was when the glaring lights above her switched on.

Her captors arrived and loomed over her 'Satan' a black blur, still marked by a red glow upon his head and the brown blur next to him might well have been Carol's "angel".

"You don't know who she is?" asked the thin voice of 'Satan'.

"No," there was that dreamy accent again. It was the 'angel' alright, "she was just lying next to Wolverine. She might be a new member of the X-Men or simply a random woman that had the misfortune of crossing parts with Victor, no?"

So her captors knew about the X-Men, and they knew Sabretooth well enough to call him by his civilian name. Carol wished she could stand up. She started to squirm and groan.

Satan chuckled, "Quite a feisty one. Well, she is certainly a mutant, otherwise her skin would not have grown back that fast. And if these readings are correct," the humming noise was now much closer, passing over Carol's stomach and breasts, "then her encounter with Sabretooth has actually accelerated her powers. Her re-grown skin has the strength and durability of titanium. That woman is now bullet proof."

"I assume that means you want her to join us?"

'Satan' snorted, "Having another of Xavier's flock lying about? I am not stupid. Her power is useful well enough, but as long as we cannot do anything about her mental allegiance she will be more a liability than a help. I think I will just kill her and implant her power to someone else. You could very well use some boost to your defense."

"Kill her? But she's…."

"I do not care about matters like that. Prepare her for an autopsy. I will check on Wolverine."

"But sir!"

"It was not a request," 'Satan's' voice started to sound very sharp, "and I am your Master, not your sir. I wish to be addressed as such.

"Yes….Master." The line would have been corny if it had been said with the sort of submissiveness that the word 'master' normally commanded. However, there had been a tone of defiance and, yes, even annoyance in the 'angel's' voice, faint but obvious enough for even someone half-unconscious such as Carol to pick up.

'Satan' left the room, the brown blur stayed, hovering over her, now an angel of death. Carol's whole being screamed, it could not end like that! What she had seen, what she had heard, she had to get it back to Colonel Fury and Professor Xavier! If Wolverine was there too, she had to try to get help, if X-23 was still out there, she had to try to get to the girl, if Sabretooth was still out there, she had to try to get her revenge. She wanted to jump up, beat that false angel down and storm out. Sadly her control over her body had not yet fully returned so her escape attempt was reduced to a few moments of flailing her limbs about and a badly articulated, drawn out groan of "Angel….."

'Shhhh!" the 'angel' gripped her and helped her sitting up. His hands were gloved. He was definitely not a servant of heaven, in her mind, angels would not wear leather gloves. And angels sure as anything would not speak in accents either!

"Do not talk," he was whispering now, "we need you to get out of here, before he kills you!" He wrapped her in something that felt like a long cloak or coat and helped her crossing the room. Why couldn't her vision become normal again? She so desperately wanted to know where she was.

"Let's prey that the portal is still open!"

There was an odd sensation, like diving into a perfectly still pool of water. It was however a little more solid than normal water, Carol could only compare it to what she imagined submerging into a pool of jelly to feel like, only less sticky. Then they were in the tunnel again, traversing it now into the opposite direction.

"I am not doing this by choice," said the 'angel', "I need his help. But I will not allow him to make me a murderer." and, before Carol knew what was going on the 'angel' wished her good luck and shoved her through another barrier of non-sticky jelly. She landed hard on and slid over naked concrete again, only this time it did not hurt, it did not break any skin. Carol's personal journey through hell was at its end.

* * *

It took Carol a few moments to get her bearings, but as her vision and sense of balance finally restored themselves to normal levels she found herself back in the entrance hall of the abandoned factory Sabretooth had painted with her blood. She wrapped the coat she had gotten from her helper tight around her otherwise naked body, sliding her arms into its tattered sleeves and fastening the belt. It was not much, but it would grant her at least some level of modesty and protection. Though, if she thought of all the people who had seen her naked that day she briefly considered flashing Professor Xavier once she had found her way back to his school, just so that he wouldn't feel left out.

She gasped as she remembered what she had heard her captors saying about Wolverine. She had to find her way back and help him! She turned around into the direction she had been thrown from, but only saw her own reflection looking back to her from a faded, partly cracked wall mirror. She had seen stranger things since she had joined MetHum than a mirror that served as a gateway to other places. She approached it and started to feel its surface in hopes that it would become a pool of jelly again that she could traverse back into the malodorous lair of her captors. No such luck, whoever had helped her escape had closed the portal right behind her. She started to remember the guy who had carried her through the portal. She hoped he was alright, his 'master' would not be happy about him letting her go.

A crash from the main assembly hall reminded Carol that she had more pressing matters. Sabretooth was still on the loose and, by the sounds of it, he had just found a new victim. For a moment Carol looked helplessly about, Sabretooth had taken all her weapons, her doses of power inhibitor and her SHIELD communicator from her, leaving her naked but for the coat that weird guy on the other side of the mirror had given her. She cursed her situation, but then she remembered what 'Satan' had said when he had examined her, the stuff about Sabretooth's attack accelerating her mutant powers and her skin being bullet proof. Could it be the truth? The impact on the concrete had not hurt her, she looked down at her hands and smiled. She was just like a super hero now.

"You better watch your step now, Sabretooth!" Filled with new hope she ran towards the assembly hall.

The crash had come from the collapse of one of the rickety metal staircases that led to a sort of catwalk that ran the whole northern part of the assembly hall. Up there, halfway along the length of the catwalk she saw the two figures of Sabretooth and X-23 fighting against the backdrop of the red-painted windows. It was mostly Sabretooth using his claws, while the girl tried to dodge as best as she could. Dodging one particular nasty swipe brought X-23 dangerously close to the edge of the catwalk.

"Watch out Linda!" called Carol, out of reflex more than anything else.

It proofed fatal as X-23 was startled and looked at the woman below. Sabretooth made another swipe at her and sent the girl flying over the banister and, after falling almost five meters, crashing into a defunct conveyor belt.

Carol gasped and ran over to where the X-23 had impacted and kneeled down to her. "Hey there buddy…" she looked at X-23, who stared back.

At first the girl glared at Carol angry and defiant, but then she broke, her eyebrows softened, her mouth twitched. And were that really tears that streamed from X-23 eyes? That was when Carol realized that she had never truly seen X-23 as somebody who could be hurt or be dependent on anybody. She would not make that mistake again. She would protect her from Sabretooth and the whole world if necessary.

"Are you alright, there Ma'am?"

X-23 tried to move and hissed in pain, "My arm is dislocated. Sabretooth has suppressed my healing factor with your poison."

There was a loud thumb right next to Carol and X-23. "My dear agent, coming back for more?"

X-23 stirred again "I need to fight him."

"No," Carol gently pushed the girl back to the ground and stood up, positioning herself between X-23 and Sabretooth, "he will not hurt you, Linda. I am Carol Danvers, agent of SHIELD and I am here to protect you!"

Sabretooth laughed at that, droplets of dirty saliva flying through the air and spraying Carol. With a bright bow his claws descended upon her. Carol intercepted them with her arms. Her spirits were lifted, aside from some discomfort from the impact, there was no pain. Even better, Sabretooth's own strength was deflected back to him and threw him a few feet back. She glanced down at her arms, the sleeves of her coat were torn, but the skin was unbroken and unmarked, the swipe should have been enough to take her arms off. She smirked at Sabretooth, who still seemed perplexed at this recent development.

"I'm titanium, scumbag!" Realizing that she did not need any weapons she took a good punch straight to Sabretooth's chin. She would be alright. She would get herself and the girl to safety.


	10. Chapter X:X-23

**Chapter X**

**X-23**

X-23 ducked into the rubble of the demolished conveyor belt around her and watched as the woman in the trench coat proceeded to fight Sabretooth. For a while the woman kept the upper hand through her agility and the element of surprise alone, darting around the still staggered Sabretooth and landing one punch after the other. Nothing since Madame Hydra begging for her life had felt so nice to X-23 as the way this stranger made pounded the air from Sabretooth's lungs.

Soon however Sabretooth regained his bearings, while the woman, for some reason seemed to lose her edge, her reactions grew just that much slower, her punches became just that much less determent. To X-23 it was clear that the woman, despite her outward health, suffered from some sort of recent internal trauma that impacted negatively on her fighting ability and it was only a matter of fact until Sabretooth with his healing factor would overpower her.

For a moment X-23 considered leaving those two to their fighting and use that opportunity to set out and find Wolverine. If it was Sabretooth attacking a civilian X-23 would have interfered without flinching, but as far as she could tell the blonde woman was a skilled fighter as well as a mutant, no ordinary human would b al o stand against Sabretooth like that. And how was X-23 to know that the woman was not just another rival of Sabretooth and Wolverine? An obscure reference in SHIELD's databases to an assassin called 'Lady Deathstrike' came to mind.

But then again, the woman was obviously defending her, and she had called her by a name. Linda was close enough to the name Dr. Risman had given X-23 for it to be an honest mistake. Could the woman be somehow known to X-23? Could she be, if X-23 indeed dared to hope it, be an ally of some sorts?

The woman had succeeded in driving Sabretooth a few feet away from X-23, so she decided to slowly creep after the two combatants to get a better look at the woman. Hiding behind a concrete pillar X-23 watched in awe as the woman missed Sabretooth's face by just a few inches, he punch instead impacting on the concrete wall behind him, and utterly shattering a large section of it! The woman looked like a fury, wild blond hair flowing around her face like a halo, her blue eyes crackling like lightning, her skin flushed red all over. That was when X-23 recognized the woman; it was one of the people in Colonel Fury's department at SHIELD. The woman had looked just as angry the first time she had met Dr. Risman. It had made X-23 laugh. So she must have been the captive SHIELD agent Sabretooth had referred to. But since when was she a mutant? She had never demonstrated that level of durability and strength before. X-23 wondered, could ordinary people become mutants? Could someone who was long past the age mutant powers normally manifested go to bed one day and wake up breathing fire or with their body made out of sentient water? And if so; was the reverse possible too? Were mutants potentially liable to lose their powers spontaneously? X-23 shook her head, the idea of her waking up one day as a normal girl without adamantium claws and without animal senses was just wishful thinking. She had to help the SHIELD agent, but first she had to realign her shoulder. She gripped her shoulder with her healthy arm and gritted her teeth. Without her healing factor to assist her this would hurt even more than usually. She started to manipulate the bone. The pain was unbelievable, engulfing, maddening. Despite all her training, despite all her will she cried out. That should prove fatal.

"Linda!"For an instant the SHIELD agent averted her attention from Sabretooth. It was enough for Sabretooth to launch an attack with all his strength and all his weight, throwing the woman straight through a concrete pillar and into the wall. She was instantly out cold.

Now Sabretooth had his good mood back, laughing his disgusting wet laugh he turned to X-23, slowly walking towards her.

X-23 just crouched there. She could not explain it to herself; she knew how to handle this kind of situation, all she had to do was extend her claws and let her instincts take over, Sabretooth was a formidable opponent but she was skilled enough to have a chance. Yet, she looked down at her hands, flexing them to see her retracted claws under her skin, if readjusting her shoulder had hurt that much without her healing factor, how bad would extending her claws be?

"Awwww, is the little pup scared?" Sabretooth now towered above her. There was something in his eyes that had not been there before, something beyond murder lust, and although X-23 could not quite read it sent chills down her spine like little had ever done before. "I'm on a job, ya know? But the boss should be happy that I delivered the runt to him. It'd be only fair of him to let me play with you a bit. After all," he flexed his claws, "he never specified in what condition he wants ya delivered." And with that he brought down a dreadful swipe directly at X-23's face. More out of reflex than anything else X-23 closed her eyes as Sabretooth's roar resounded through every part of her being.

And then she opened them again, confused over the lack of pain, and the only thing she saw was Sabretooth's right foot racing towards her face. Again following a reflex she jerked her head back, but as the foot collided with her face, there was no pain either, no feeling at all as the foot disappeared in front of her. She barely registered the noise of Sabretooth growling behind her as she suddenly found her field of vision filled with first a mane of dirty blond hair, and then obscured by what appeared to be brown leather, both belonging to the figure of Sabretooth jumping away from her, colliding face-first with the ground and sliding befuddled over the floor. X-23 was on the verge of screaming, why didn't Sabretooth attack her, hurt her? What was holding him back, what was preventing him from touching her?

"Shhhh!" Shadowcat's voice sounded from behind X-23 back. She glanced back to see Shadowcat, half phased into the floor and grinning at her. The other girl was holding on to X-23's left leg. So that was what was happening, Shadowcat had been making her intangible and Sabretooth had been clawing and pouncing right through her. X-23 felt herself giggling at that, the whole situation was just so bizarre. Strange, she would have imagined that being phased felt like….something, but it did not feel different from being tangible at all.

"Laugh at me, will ya?" Sabretooth's voice was furious by now as he made for another assault at X-23. His growl turned into a painful whimper as a beam of hot-pink energy impacted into his side, shooting him down just moments before pouncing at the two mutant girls and throwing him into a conveyor belt.

"Sabretooth! Down!" Cyclops stood in the rubble from the section of wall the female SHIELD agent had punched in earlier. His hand still on the release of his visor, he did not divert his eyes from Sabretooth for even a split second.

"Nightcrawler, teleport Agent Danvers out, she's wounded! Shadowcat, get Laura away from here!"

Nightcrawler appeared and whisked the SHIELD agent away in a blink of an eye and two successive blasts of brimstone smoke. X-23 was relieved that the woman who had been injured defending her was save now, but she was not ready to leave the battlefield yet herself, not before Wolverine was found. Tearing herself free from Shadowcat's grip before the latter could phase her through the floor she rolled across the ground and back onto her feet. She was used to fighting alone, yet strangely the appearance of the X-Men gave her a feeling of security, of refreshed strength and courage, much like a wolf might feel at the arrival of his pack to help him against a enragen mountain lion. She extended her claws, and, yes it did hurt much, much more than usual. It was like she could feel the adamantium tear through every single fiber of her skin, but she knew she was strong enough to take it, she had to be, a pack was only as strong as its weakest link.

By now Sabretooth had recovered and, jumping right through Shadowcat, came once again for X-23. He was a rabid dog, bellowing and growling inhumanly. X-23 made for a counter attack, but it proved unnecessary as a burst of broken window glass heralded the entrance of Jean Grey from above. The young woman glided through the air with the grace of an Olympic diver only to seemingly freeze in midair as she extended her arms. There was something of a golden glow about Jean Grey as she used her telekinesis to lift Sabretooth up with a swipe of her arm and locked him safely in midair.

Sabretooth roared, trashed about, droplets his saliva flying in every direction as it collected as foam in front of his mouth. The struggle visibly put strain on Jean Grey, forcing her to conserve her telekinesis by landing.

"Scott! I don't think I can hold him much longer, he's too strong!" every muscle in Jean Grey's body was strained as she held Sabretooth's trashing, writhing weight in place.

Cyclops put his hand on his visor again, "Kitty, get Laura out now!"

Shadowcat was about to place her hand on X-23' shoulder, but she jerked away.

"I'm not leaving before we have found Wolverine!" she declared, she was not going to leave before she knew that Wolverine was safe. If Sabretooth had done anything to him, it would be her fault and she had to atone for that by executing revenge upon him.

Cyclops bit his lip, "Fine, you can stay, but don't get in our way."

X-23 nodded. Yeah, she thought, I, the professionally trained living weapon will get in the way of some stupid kids.

"You can release him now, Ms. Grey." Cyclops and Shadowcat looked just as confused as X-23 felt at the arrival of Colonel Fury and his SHIELD agents who suddenly seemed to pop up from every little crack and crevice the assembly hall offered, all armed to the teeth, all aiming at Sabretooth. Colonel Fury smiled, his hands clasped leisurely behind his back, "We will take care of Mr. Creed from here on."

Moving her hands down vigorously Jean Grey slammed Sabretooth into the ground. She went down to her knees, Cyclops hastening to her side. By the time Sabretooth got up from the clouds of dusts he was already surrounded by the gun barrels of not less than five SHIELD agents. To X-23's surprise Sabretooth surrendered, raising his hands. It disappointed her, she would have preferred to take care of him once and for all, freeing herself and Wolverine of his looming presence.

That was when he glanced in her direction and grinned. "Congratulations Colonel for capturing me once again," his voice was mocking, "and you even managed to save both the pup and the bitch. But I'm afraid you come just a little late to rescue Wolverine."

It was like a bomb had just exploded in the centre of the room; behind X-23 Kitty gasped Jean Grey looked up, her flushed face suddenly paling, Scott bent himself over her, as if ready to throw up. Even Colonel Fury, now standing next to X-23 betrayed his shock at those news by the way the fingers on his left hand twitched for just a second.

X-23 felt….how could she really express how she felt? It was like someone had just punched her into the stomach, like readjusting a dislocated shoulder, like extending her claws without her healing factor. It felt like all these things together and a million times worse. Wolverine. Good, noble Wolverine, gone? Had Sabretooth really succeeded in his eternal hunt for Wolverine? Had she allowed him to keep her from rescuing Wolverine for too long, causing him to bleed to death without his healing factor? No it was not fair! It could not be! Wolverine gone and Sabretoth the monster still around? Wolverine dead just when they were supposed to finally be a family? All her fault for getting scared and running away? No this could not be true! This had to be some sort of bad dream!

"You MONSTER!" she screamed and rushed towards Sabretooth, but Colonel Fury held her back. He seemed not to mind her screeching at the loudest volume she could force her lungs to produce or the fact that she trashed about wildly with her razor sharp claws. He just forced her into a firm grip, pressing her against him, while continuing to talk with Sabretooth.

"Where is the body?"

X-23 was ready to slice his head off, how could the Colonel dare to talk so calmly about Wolverine being dead? How could he dare to talk to Sabretooth, Wolverine's murderer at all? Why hadn't he killed that vile creature yet? She had to get out, but the Colonel's hold on her was too strong. She bit him, her teeth slicing straight through the Kevlar covering his hand, drawing blood and even hitting bone, but still Colonel Fury paid her no more attention than was needed to keep her captured.

"Logan's not dead," declared Jean Grey standing up and approaching Sabretooth. The look on her face was at first one of relief, then her eyebrows sunk, only to rise again rapidly as her eyes grew wide. "He's captured. He's in the hands of somebody who had been looking for him for a long time." Her face grew distorted with pain, she touched her forehead. "I can't get to the information as to where he took Logan. He's like Mystique; his mind is closed to me."

Sabretooth chuckled, "You bet it is, Red. My new sponsor equipped me with some spiffy new mental defenses not even Baldy could break. So what chance does a greenhorn like you have?" He glanced at X-23 as he made that last remark. X-23 knew that Sabretooth tried to yank her chain, but, to her great humiliation, it worked. Her whole being from way down in her stomach to all the neuron synapses in her brain, was screaming. She tried to break free from Fury again, stronger than before, but again to no avail.

"That is enough!" Fury's voice was strained, angry even. He addressed his men, "take him to the headquarters. Even if we can't get him to talk, we can at least remove him from the equation for good."

Sabretooth did not resist as the SHIELD personnel secured him, merely smile with his yellow, dripping fangs, "If you say so, Colenel", and then chuckled again.

X-23 struggled against Fury's grip the whole time as they watched Sabretooth being led away. Only after they had heard the SHIELD jet with him aboard lift of did Fury release her, slowly and carefully. All X-23 wanted as this point was to run, run away and find Logan and fight and kill whoever had him captured and free him. That was her mission now. She attempted to bolt away but Fury placing his hand on her shoulder kept her back.

"It's not what Logan would want, kid."

How dared he! She swung around, holding up her claws into Fury's face and wanted to growl at him, asking how he dared to propose to her what Wolverine might or might not want! She however only came as far as "How da-…!" before she could feel a sort of stinging in her eyes and her voice trailed off into incoherent sobbing.

The Colonel's voice changed, becoming softer, "Hey there, no need for that."

Somehow this little bit of kindness was enough for X-23 to latch on to as she clung her arms around Fury's and started to weep loudly.

He laid his hands on her shoulders, "We'll find him kid. You have my word, we'll find him."

Yes they would, agreed X-23 in her mind. SHIELD had the power, the connections, the resources. They would find whoever was holding Wolverine. And once they had found them, X-23 would wrest that information from them and made the captor bleed.


	11. Chapter XI:Epilogue

**Chapter XI**

**Epilogue**

* * *

**Ororo**

As Ororo walked down the corridor, the glare of halogen l amps beating down on her and the humming of air conditioners droning in her ears, she reflected on how surreal this whole situation was. If someone had told young Ororo in the savannas of Africa that she would one day end up in a place like this, taking up a position like hers and surrendering so much freedom as she was about to do, she could not decide if she had laughed at them or threatened their life for insulting her like that. Indeed, even Ororo of only a year ago would have declared the messenger out of his mind at worst, sorely mistaken at best. Yet so much had changed in the last year; she had failed to protect her nephew, she had failed to protect the Brotherhood, she had been bound, body and soul, to a creature so utterly oppressive, so utterly vile and amoral that she still shuddered at the merest reminder of that incident and Logan, who during their time together at the Professor's school had become her friend and confidant, was gone, in the hands of an entity that was perhaps appeared even more sinister and threatening than it already was, because of its unknown identity and agenda. Had Ororo really excepted to come out of all these ordeals undamaged, unchanged?

Logan's disappearance had been a final straw to destroy Xaver's as a home for her, so she had been faced with no other choice than to leave. But still, a place like this? She briefly stopped and glanced out of the corridor's transparent outer wall. On the other side of the diamond glass clouds were painted golden and pink by the setting sun, gale winds and little breezes whirled about and, deep below it all, was life-giving, life-bearing Earth. Out there the songs of life sounded in bright jubilee. Yet on her side of the barrier all was cold and sterile and still, the world of metal and glass and technology, anathema to Ororo and yet her new abode. Had her decision to come here been a punishment, she wondered. Had she exiled herself into this lifeless hell for failing Evan and Logan? She shook her head. Maybe it was that way, in part at least, but she had come here mainly because she had felt that she could be of service here, more so than she was at the Professor's school for the time being. Hopefully this challenge would, in time enable her to grow beyond her current state of confusion and, perhaps, leading her to the answers of questions she had not dared to ask herself since her powers had emerged so many years ago. Questions not for the goddess but for the mortal in her.

Ororo arrived at the door that marked her destination and typed a set of numbers into the pad next to it, unlocking it and allowing herself entrance into her new home.

She immediately felt like shutting the door again, turning around and fleeing back into her savannahs. She had thought, hoped, that at least the personal quarters on this science fiction nightmare of an airship would have felt, well, like actual living space. But from what she could tell of the entrance area, which apparently was also the living area, dining area and a rudimentary kitchen her new quarters were just as grey, metallic and impersonal as the corridor outside. No, worse than the corridor, for there was no window in the room. That could not be right. She walked through one of the two doors that led from the main room, arriving in what she could only call a large closet occupied mostly by an uncomfortable looking bed with a metal frame, and that, again, lacked a window. She went back into the main room and darted through the other door, finding a dressing area, toilet and bathroom with a shower but still no windows. She returned to the main room and sat down on the mottled grey couch there. She buried her face in her hands; this would not do, this would never do! She could not live in a place like that where there was no natural light and no way for her to weak up to the morning sun and where there was not enough room to keep even a tiny fraction of her plants with her. This place was like a metal coffin that would, sooner or later, suffocate her.

"Did I come at a bad time?" Ororo startled up and looked at Colonel Fury standing in the door. Her new superior, as she reminded herself, was dressed in a black bodysuit and jacket that Ororo was unsure whether to categorize as a variation of the SHIELD uniform or civilian attire, in his hands, one of them bandaged after X-23 had bitten it open to the bone he held a small potted plant, a bonsai of some sorts.

Ororo stood up and brushed her hair out of her face. "No, not at all, Colonel," she gestured towards a chair made out of the same colourless fabric as the sofa, "please come in. I would offer you a cup of tea, but I have neither cups nor tea here yet."

The Colonel nodded and handed the bonsai over to Ororo, "I thought I bring you a welcome present to bring a bit of familiarity into this place." He smiled. He was handsome when he did so.

"It is much appreciated." That was the truth, even if the tree was small and tamed and neutered it was something living, something green. As she took the bonsai from the Colonel their hands brushed against each other. A feeling like lightning surged through Ororo's whole body. She quickly took the plant and turned away. It had been the first time that she had touched the Colonel skin-to-skin. It was also the first time in, what seemed, uncountable years that such contact had caused that reaction in her. A new part of her life was starting, what kinds of fruit would this branch bear?

* * *

**Carol**

They call this their danger room? Carol avoided an energy blast with ease and then spun around to punch right through the cannon that had fired it. Ha! This stupid simulation was no match for her new powers. She deactivated another cannon with a kick and then jumped up a raised platform that ran the length of the eastern half of the room. She ran down that platform towards her main target, a combat simulator which she had to deactivate by pressing a large red button on its side. Every few meters she had to dodge a squadron of razor disks fired by the simulator, but it took her only a few attempts to discover the pattern they were programmed in. Only once did a did a disk graze her arm, slicing through her sleeve and colliding with her skin before being repelled and zooming away across the room. It had caused Carol to halt for an instant and marvel at the experience, the disk's teeth grinding against her skin had felt odd, warm, hot even. There had been sparks like if the disk had grazed a metal surface. Continuing on she now used her arms to destroy a couple of the disks rather than just dodging them. It made the whole thing even easier. Finally she reached her target, following its programming the simulator made a last ditch effort at beating her by dispatching double the usual number of razor disks. Finding herself surrounded Carol, in a stroke of inspiration simply curled herself together in a ball, allowing the disks to collide with her and be repelled once again. She got up and wanted to move on to deactivate the simulator, only to find that she had accidently reflected three of the disks right into its processor, destroying the machine.

Carol stretched the back of her head; she really hoped that she wouldn't get into any trouble with Professor Xavier for breaking that thing, she did not want to know how many pay checks from SHIELD it would take to replace that.

She started to stretch. Maybe she should just try to explain to the Professor how useless this whole danger room was in her opinion. In her mind simulated foes had no chance to ever replicate the way a real opponent behaved. The human brain was, after all, not a programmed device that blindly followed sub-routines, but was able to think creatively and adapt to circumstances much fast than a computer, no matter how fancy. This school could save a fortune in repairs and electricity bills by throwing out all these machines and replacing them with good old competitive training, just like at cadet camp, or where the kids here maybe too "considerate" of each other for a good fight or two?

She sighed. The fact remained that these machines would not help her with working out a strategy to beat Sabretooth, which was not just a matter of personal revenge, but also the only way to get her back to the Helicarrier. Sure, Fury had made it sound like a promotion when he had commanded Carol to stay at Xavier's and act as guardian to X-23, but Carol Danvers was not a greenhorn, she knew very well that "promotions" like this were a convenient way to get rid of an agent that had ignored direct orders, only to run straight into a trap, endanger the whole mission, forced SHIELD into seeking the aid of third-party organisations and caused the loss of a valuable member of the reserve.

Carol felt like somebody had driven a dagger into her abdomen. Oh God, she had almost forgotten about Wolverine! She had reported everything she knew to both Fury and Xavier; how Wolverine had come to her rescue, the way Sabretooth had neutralised his powers and the stuff that didn't even made sense to herself, the angel with the southern accent, the mirror portal, the three red eyes in the darkness. Beating Sabretooth was maybe just a way to prove herself once more to SHIELD, but finding and recovering Wolverine, dead or alive, was a matter of personal debt and honour. It was just like with Mark Swindells, the soldier in Stevie's battalion who had gone back out into the street to recover her brother's body, it was something she had to do if she wanted to look at herself in the mirror again one day.

Maybe she should give this glorified laser tag arena another go.

"Computer," she felt silly addressing a machine, like an extra in Star Trek, "is there any way to simulate the combat stile of specific opponents?"

"Affirmative," even the voice of the thing sounded like the computer on the Enterprise, "there are currently 1500 individual fighting routines in the database. Do you wish to load one?"

"Yes," answered Carol, "Victor Creed, codename Sabretooth."

There was a sound similar to the failure alarm on a windows pc, "Error, system cannot open file: Opponents:/Sabretooth. Access denied. All subfolders in Opponents:/Sabretooth are restricted."

Carol bit her lip, "And who has access to them?"

"One authorisation to Opponents:/Sabretooth: Instructor Account: Logan_Wolverine."

"Figures!" Carol hit the ground with her fist, leaving a noticeable dent in the metal. She jumped back up. "Just stop touching things from now on, Carol darling," she said to herself and looked back up at the command centre of the danger room.

"Computer, run another randomized training exercise, but this time with highest possible difficulty level."

"Warning: all safety..."

"I don't care," Carol cut the computer off, "just run it!"

"Understood. Randomized Training Exercise Seed 1282429. Difficulty Level: The Best There Is."

There was a tremendous humming in the whole room, as if all gears, weapon systems and traps Xavier's had to offer came to life at once. Wall panels opened and shifted, floor tiles sunk to form pits or rose to build obstacles. Well, this looked much better!

Carol smiled and got into fighting position, "Bring it o..." her words were drawn out into a scream as she was grabbed from behind by metallic claws and risen high towards the rooms ceiling.

Getting her bearing Carol realized she was captured by something like a mechanic tentacle with claws. Thinking this to be oddly phallic Carol tried to bend the claws around her out of shape in order to break free. It was for naught. Her power might have given her impenetrable skin, but had done nothing to raise her strength levels. Without sufficient momentum to augment her own power, she could not break the monstrosity holding her captive.

The metal snake shifted, manoeuvring its head over what appeared to be a pitch filled with molten magma. Dismissing the gaping question of how Xavier had managed to get a freaking lava pit into his school, Carol already resigned to say her prayers as the claw opened and sent her flying plunging straight into her doom.

Only that, just before the edge of the pit, Carol suddenly found herself, not only suspended in mid air, but raising further up again, reaching safe midair levels within moments. What the...? Carol thought she had gone mad; since when could she fly? Was that another part of her new powers? Were they still evolving?

"_They might be," _Carol heard a voice in her head, _"but I am afraid that, at least for now, your flight powers come from me." _

Carol looked up towards the command centre which was now manned by a young woman with long red hair, Jean Grey, one of Xavier's students and her fellow instructor. Jean shut down the program and then opened a side ledge of the command centre in order to levitate Carol into the room with her.

Carol wiped the sweat from her forehead, "Thanks, Jean, that was close." She laughed, glad to have made it through that unscathed, glad to be alive.

Jean, on the other hand, did not seem to find the current situation entertaining. She rose from her seat at the control panel and turned around to Carol. Her face was like stone, her hair flowing in a wind that was not there.

"What were you thinking to go for a solo session in the Danger Room?"

That took Carol aback, was that girl, who was not only five years her junior but a civilian to boot attempting to berate her?

"Yes I am," was Jean's answer to Carol's thoughts, "because, while you might be experienced SHIELD agent, you are, at best, a novice when it comes to using your powers in combat. You could have been killed."

"_Which is the real reason Colonel Fury stationed you here, Carol,_" Jean added via mindspeak, _"so that you can learn about the extend and limits of your mutation in a safe environment, not because of any perceived failure, like you are worried about."_

The nerve! "Excuse me? Will you stay out of my head please?" What was that mind witch thinking she was?

"I am Jean Grey, a senior staff member of Professor Xavier's School for the Gifted with almost four years experience in the use and analysis of mutant powers. And member of the X-Men." She put her hands on her hips, "That's who I think I am, Ms. Danvers."

"_And if you knew how to shield your mind, I wouldn't have such an easy time reading it! I can show you how to build such a barrier if you like, you only have to trust me."_

Carol chuckled. Trusting the mind reader, yeah of course!

"Thank you, Ms. Grey," she said with a forced smile, "but I rather have you stay out of my mind if you are okay with that." She started to leave the room, only turning around to Jean at the door, "And enjoy your act as mutant Queen Bee as long as you still can, because in a fortnight it's off to college with you and then you might find yourself a little fish in a pond much too big for you."

* * *

**Professor Xavier**

From the central window of his office Professor Charles Xavier had a good view of the gardens and grounds behind the school building. Most of the time this just granted him a pleasant scenery to look at while filing bills and organising training schedules, other times this allowed him to observe a training exercise form the sidelines, helping his students to pass an obstacle course or find a moving target with subtle mental cues. Today in particular, Charles Xavier was audience to a different type of training exercise, one in reaching out and in forgiving. And this time his skills would not be needed, because the two participants of this exercise already had a skilled, and enthusiastic, trainer in Kitty Pryde.

Said trainer was currently moving through one of the grounds' more forested areas. Kitty face was cheerful, her arm linked with the first of the participants; a very special young woman who had recently changed her name from Laura Risman to Linda Logan, partly out of resentment to the woman who had created her, partly in order to honour the man she perceived as her father.

Kitty chatted merrily with Linda, who was more solemn in her body language, more timid in her responses to Kitty. Signs of a difference in character and an unfamiliarity with social situation that Xavier knew better than to mistake as ineptness or even fear. To the casual observer it looked like the girls were just out on a Sunday stroll enjoying one of the last weekends before school would start. And perhaps Linda was actually thinking this was the case, but the subtle way Kitty manoeuvred them towards the deck of the swimming pool betrayed their true purpose.

Because there waited the second participant in the test; Bobby Drake, and his challenge would be to forgive the wrong Linda had done him just three days ago. To truly forgive, not just to downplay his feelings about the matter. Bobby, surrounded by his good friends Sam and Ray had spent the last several hours at the sundeck next to the swimming pool to see if his right arm, which was still composed of nothing but translucent, pale blue ice, would melt from prolonged exposure to the sun. So far his endeavour had earned him nothing but sunburn on the arm that was still flesh and blood. The three boys were passing the time by playing a game of cards which was made more difficult as cards Bobby held in his ice hand for too long froze solid and were in danger of shattering. After they had already lost one deck to that circumstance Bobby took care to only touch the cards with his left hand.

Then the critical phase of the test begun as Linda and Kitty arrived at the edge of the pool. Upon being spotted by the boys Linda shrunk somewhat together, while Kitty waved at them to come over. Bobby apologized himself from the game and approached the girls.

While it was Kitty who initiated the talk by explaining what they why the girls had come to Bobby and gently shoving Linda towards him, Linda soon took the initiative from her. While Xavier was too far away to hear the actual conversation Linda's body language anointed a clear enough picture. Slightly bowed, her hands clasped in front of her heart and her eyes fixed on the ground she delivered her apology. Finally it was Bobby's jovial character that broke the ice as he waved Linda's concerns away and even offered her to touch the ice arm she had helped create. Linda looked into his face for the first time, unsure, hesitating, but as Bobby nodded and raised his open hand closer to Linda she finally accepted the offer, but quickly withdrew her hand from the ice because of the cold. Bobby laughed and gestured for Linda and Kitty to join the boys in their game. Linda shook her head and attempted to leave, but Bobby continued to talk to her. Upon finally convincing her to join the game Bobby used his powers to create a frozen replica of a rose and handed it to Linda as they and Kitty walked back to Sam and Ray.

Charles Xavier was proud of every single student that had been involved in that special sort of exercise, as they had all passed with flying colours, but he was especially proud of Linda Logan, the girl formally known as X-23, for she had just taken a step towards reclaiming her life. A step that would have even made Logan smile.

"_Good to see that at least she gets along with the others," _Xavier recognised Jean's telepathic voice calling him to the astral plane. Leaving his weak, crippled body behind Xavier ascended into the world of the mind.

Perhaps best described as Plato's world of ideas the astral plane was a state of being where things were reduced to their original archetypes. This could be true for places like Xavier's school which bleed over into the astral realm in the form of half-transparent frescos and tapestries that embodied his dream of human-mutant coexistence, dream images of shining figures living and working together to improve their world and paying no heed to petty things like skin colour, wings, scales or horns. This could also be true for people, however, their appearance in this plane, their astral form, was often tainted by the way they viewed themselves and also tended to reflect the extent of their mental capacities. Professor Xavier, a telepath of considerable power, but also a bit too convinced that he had outgrown human needs and errors thus appeared as a tall, broad shouldered, but completely featureless being of greyish-white colour. Jean Grey, being Xavier's student, had naturally subconsciously patterned her own astral form after his. Less willing than him to deny herself she appeared as a ghostly version of herself, solid green in colour. In his mind Xavier had often linked this image to the ethereal Ariel, Prospero's trusted servant in "The Tempest" (in fact Ariel had been the first of many codenames Jean had tried out but ultimately rejected over the years). In a way this form was even more familiar to the telepath, a person living most of his life in his mind, than Jean's flesh and blood appearance.

So it came as a considerable shock to Xavier when, instead of the green, demure elf that given a form to Jean's thoughts previously, he found himself in the presence of a tall, regal goddess, clad in white with flowing hair like molten copper and surrounded by an aura that represented nothing as much as the sun's own corona and crowned by stars. Images buried deep in Xavier's mind, images of a future gone bad stirred in their sleep.

But Jean's face smiled, _"I don't understand the change either Professor, I only know it happened after our battle in Egypt."_

"_I understand, Jean." _That seemed logical, the mental battle he himself, albeit under Apocalypse's control, had fought against Jean must have pushed her powers to their limits and from pushing one's limits comes growth. Perfectly natural, nothing to worry about, and yet...

"_Now is not the time to discuss this," _said Jean, _"we have more urgent matters at hand." _

"_Ah yes, is Ms. Danvers safe?" _

"_She is for now. But I have difficulty believing that she will be able to integrate into our family. You should her thoughts in response to me not only saving her, but offering my assistance." _

"_She is a military woman, coming from a long line of soldiers. It is natural that she would have difficulty adapting to civilian norms. Just the same as Ororo will have difficulty to adjusting to life under SHIELD." _

Jean's astral self dropped her gaze, _"I will miss her. Ororo, Logan, and soon Scott and me, how will the school survive so many departures?"_

"_You forget, Jean, that endings and departures always lead to beginnings and welcomes." _He gestured towards three projections of young people, young mutants. One was a girl in demure, beige clothes with brown hair that turned bright green at the roots, the second one was a boy with long red hair and the third was a blonde young woman in very risqué dress.

"_Three emerging mutants, Jean. Three of hundreds in America alone." _

Jean raised her eyebrows, _"Hundreds? The last time we scanned there were less than 80 mutants active across the whole continent. What happened?" _

"_Apocalypse. We stopped him in time to prevent his plan from coming to fruit entirely, but, evidently, we were unable to stop some of the seeds from sprouting. SHIELD does not know about this development yet, and as long as they are oblivious to the throngs of new mutants in our world this information is our advantage." _

Jean nodded, _"I see." _

**The End**

**AN: That's all for now, folks. Hope you have enjoyed reading my little story and I hope you will join us soon (in two to three weeks) when Fury and Ororo recruit their Freedom Force and the X-Men are distracted from their search for Logan when the Morlocks ask for their help.**


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